The Marauders First Year
by MoonyPadfootProngs3
Summary: Chapters detailing the first year of the Marauders at Hogwarts, with the ever fabulous James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, as they experience their first year of extreme mischief and strong friendships. Rated K because I'm paranoid and some mild language. Disclaimer: I am not the incredible JK Rowling and do not own Harry Potter.
1. Chapter 1- Trains, Allergies and Puns

The Marauders Fanfiction

The date was September 1st, the time 10:59am, and Platform 9¾ was filled to maximum capacity with hundreds of students, new and returning, all anxiously waiting to board the Hogwarts Express.

A few feet away from the daunting train stood an older couple and their eleven year old son. Both father and son had a head shock full of untidy black hair that seemed to stick up in all directions as if everyone in the whole Wizarding World was using an accio charm on each individual strand and wide glasses. The mother had dark blond hair pulled into a loose ponytail and seemed to be anxious about something, which quite contrasted the laid back attitudes of her husband and son.

"You sure you've packed everything, James?" She asked.

He nodded, biting his lower lip in excitement. "Absolutely everything. Fizzing Whisbees, Dungbombs, a huge stash of Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, Sugar Quills, Dungbombs, Nose-biting Teacups, and-" James stopped abruptly upon seeing his mother's raised eyebrow and his father's knowing grin, cleared his throat, and continued in a mockingly-pompous voice. "And textbooks and quills and robes and other scholary… stuff." He flashed them a huge grin.

Dorea Potter laughed and ruffled her son's hair, making it (as impossible as this might seem) even more untidy. "Try not to give your teachers too many headaches, alright?"

Charlus Potter nodded, then, with a wink at James, added, "you've got seven whole years to drive them insane. No need to rush into it on your first day."

"Or even your first year."

"Just remember to ace your classes first-"

"And come home for Christmas-"

"And have a great time-"

"And make friends-"

"Although you seriously won't need any help with that-"

"Change your underwear-"

"And I seriously _hope_ you won't need help at all with _that-_ "

James laughed. "Guys, I'll be fine. Trust me." He pushed his glasses further up his longish nose and clapped his hands together in a 'got this' fashion. "I am your son after all."

But before that meaningful statement even had a few seconds to sink in, the train blew a warning whistle and James grabbed his trunk out of the cart, waved hastily to his parents and rushed to jump on board.

Tiny silver droplets had begun to form in Dorea Potter's eyes, and the second Charlus saw them he chuckled and hugged her. "He'll be fine. He'll rock this, and you know it."

She nodded. "It's just…" A sob tried to fight its way out of her throat. "It's just that he's my baby, and they'll be noone to spoil him over there and-"

Charlus kept one arm around his wife and with his spare one, waved to the Hogwarts Express, saying goodbye to his son until Christmas. "To be honest, I'm a bit worried too." Dorea sent her husband a disbelieving look as she too waved to that kid with ridiculously messy black hair. "Not that James isn't ready for Hogwarts of course, I'm more worried that Hogwarts isn't ready for James."

A few feet away from the Potter family, and having their 'pep-talk' (if one could even call it that) at the same time, was another family (if one could even call them _that_ ). The woman was tall, and stern, with midnight black hair tightly pulled back into a bun and intolerant grey eyes. The man was reading an article of the Daily Prophet, flipping through the pages with scoffs of disdain. He had an unyieldingly terse look to him, and the same black hair and grey eyes as his wife. The couple had two sons, the older with overgrown, unruly black hair, sparkling silver eyes and a haughty handsomeness to him, and the younger with perfectly cropped black hair, wide grey eyes and a studious, cold and distant look to his face.

"Sirius, are you listening to _anything_ I'm saying to you?" Walburga (the mother) shrieked.

"Yes, gosh!" The older boy, Sirius, exclaimed with a very 'teenagery' tone. Of course, he wasn't really paying any attention to what on earth his mother was rambling about this time, instead, young Sirius was wistfully staring at the train, millions of prank plots already beginning to flood through his bright mind.

"Good, now to re-insinuate what I've been trying to get through your thick skull for the past _half an hour_. The top three rules: One, get sorted into Slytherin or you will be disowned. Two, do _not_ embarrass this family or you will be disowned. Three-"

"Mommy, you can't disown Siri, he's too good of a brother." Regulus, the younger, pointed out, with a pout and a singsong voice.

"What are you, four?" Sirius demanded, and then, to his parents. "Anyway, I'll be fine, thanks for asking. Yes, I remembered to pack all the necessary stuff, and yes, I sincerely do appreciate everything you've done to make me feel like a loved and accepted son these past eleven years." He said in a lofty, mimicking tone, putting buckets of sarcasm into each and every syllable in that sentence, then, he threw his head back and laughed devilishly. "See you all in June!" Sirius shouted before running off the catch the train.

"Sirius! Sirius Orion Black get _back_ here!" Walburga shrieked, but the grey eyed boy had already disappeared into the crowd, shooting his parents one final 'Good luck surviving without me, jerks' grin and hopping excitedly on the train.

Walburga shook her head and looked to her husband expectedly. "What are we going to do about him?" She demanded. "I have had it up to _here_ with his rebellion." She exclaimed, using her long black wand to draw a line about as tall as a full grown mountain troll.

Regulus nodded in half-hearted agreement. "I've had it up to _here_ with his meanness." He agreed in his best 'I'm-the-victim' voice, leaping up as far as he could reach and striking his hand in the air, drawing another imaginary line.

Orion sighed and folded up the newspaper he had been attempting to read instead of undergoing the pain of dealing with his son. "I've had it up to _here_ with his existence." He pointed out, taking out his wand and shooting a line of dark green that stretched up to the heavens.

Remus Lupin stared at the Hogwarts Express with wide light eyes and a combination of terror and excitement that overall left him feeling like he was on the verge of regurgitating his entire nervous system. He turned to his parents anxiously. Lyall Lupin held his trunk and was re-reading a letter Dumbledore had given him, checking it over, and over, and over again, making sure that he hadn't missed a single detail. Hope Lupin had her hand on her son's shoulder and was looking around the platform, completely bewildered by the incredible goings of witchcraft and wizardry. "Are you sure Professor Dumbledore's okay with this?" Remus asked, eyeing his parents nervously, half-expecting them to say 'no' and take him to another small town out in the middle of nowhere to prevent him from being exposed.

Lyall put down the letter and opened his mouth to speak but Hope beat him to it. "Absolutely. For the millionth time, love," she knelt down next to him and tousled his hair, "lycanthropy or no lycanthropy, you are going to Hogwarts."

Lyall nodded in agreement. "Now are you sure you've packed everything?"

Remus bobbed his head up and down with nervous excitement. "Yeah."

"And remember, whenever it's time, your mother is ill, and you need to go see her." Lyall pointed out, looking at his son seriously. "Understand?"

Remus nodded and swallowed deeply. "Yep."

"Alright, and concerning medication and treatment, we've talked to the nurse, but if you feel anything coming up or if you feel icky after… you know…"

Remus sighed, and repeated the phrase he had utterly memorized from months upon months of hearing his parents tell it to him. "I'll go straight to Madam Pomfrey and tell her I'm having complications, she'll take care of me and call you if its anything serious. If I'm in a class and start to feel ill, I'll quietly go up and, without letting in the class eavesdrop or be suspicious, tell the teacher, because they've all been told in advance, and then I'll get a pass to go to Madam Pomfrey. I need to be absolutely sure to check the calendar every day and get where I need to go in advance, etc, etc." He recited, looking and sounding as though he was reading a script forever engraved the back of his mind. "I- I'll be okay."

"You will." Mr. and Mrs. Lupin exclaimed in unison.

Lyall clapped his son on the back and handed him his trunk. "Now, go study hard, make friends, and make us proud." He looked to his wife expectantly.

Hope (who was a muggle and quite frankly had some issues understanding how all this 'magic' stuff worked and how on earth her son managed to become a werewolf in the first place, let alone how her husband was a major wizard in the ministry of magic) grinned at her son and tousled his hair one more time. "Abracadabra these people and… be good at magic."

Lyall and Remus exchanged a nervous grin, which Hope caught immediately. "Shut up both of you. I tried. Now go rock their socks off, Remus."

With that the parents kissed Remus on the forehead, each gave him one final hug, and sent him off on the train to Hogwarts.

Once Remus was safely onboard, Lyall raised an eyebrow at his wife. " 'Abracadabra these people and be good at magic'?" He asked, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice.

She swatted at her husband playfully and stared at the train, a look of anxiety starting to cross over her face. "I just hope nothing goes wrong."

Then stuff happened with Peter that I'm too angry with the little traitor to write about. I'm not leaving him out of this thing entirely, (although I did seriously consider it for a very long while) but familial stuff is too hard to even consider writing about, because I hate that kid so much.

James sped through the crowded train, staring through the fogged glass at full compartment after full compartment. He rolled his eyes after squinting into yet another compartment, this one full of scary-looking seventh-year Slytherins. He had almost passed on to the next one when a huge _boom_ that nearly rocked the whole train echoed from that compartment, like someone had just set off a dungbomb. The four Slytherins, two boys and two girls, all over the age of fifteen raced out of there, gagging and spluttering.

" _Sirius Orion Black!_ " One of them, a girl with painfully curly long black hair and dark green robes, shouted, whipping out her wand.

James let out a snort of disbelieving laughter as he caught a whiff of what had exploded in that compartment. _"It_ was _a dungbomb_." He thought approvingly.

The girl with the tangled black hair seemed to catch sight of who she was looking for, and started to race towards her terrified eleven year old cousin. When she tried to run past James however, he pulled out his wand and quietly muttered ' _Engorgio.'_ Bellatrix shrieked as her robes became three sizes too her and she tripped on them and toppled to the floor. She whipped around viciously, and pointed her wand at James, prepared to hex him. James' heart was beating a million times per second, but he stood his ground and wracked his brain to remember every single fraction of magic his father had taught him. Of course, it really wasn't a fair match, a fifth year against a first year, but it would take a serious amount of logic to convince James the determined of that.

Bellatrix was just about to splurt out a huge strain of hexes at the boy when a rogue hand grabbed onto James's wrist and pulled him into the nearest compartment, which (miraculously) was almost empty except for a small girl with long red hair sniffling in the corner, glaring out the window angrily.

The two of them slammed the compartment door shut, causing Bellatrix to run straight into it and hit her head in the process, looking like one of those incredibly stupid flies that thought that if they flew into the window over and over, eventually they would manage to get to the other side.

James turned around, heart racing, to see a tall boy with shaggy black hair, handsome grey eyes, and a wide grin. Without saying a word to each other, they reached out and high-fived.

"That was… _wow._ " James exclaimed, lounging carefreely on the seat. "I think I can pretty safely say that you just saved my life."

Sirius grinned and sat down next to him, leaning back and putting his shoeless feet on top of his new friend's lap. "Nah, she was after me in the first place, that spell you did back there that made her trip gave me enough time to find this thing and get out of her way."

James pushed Sirius's feet off of him, causing the unsuspecting, taller boy to yelp with surprise and fall off the seat. "Wait, you were the one who put the dungbomb in there?"

"Absolutely." Sirius shot James a giant grin as he crawled back up on the seat and put his feet back on James. "So," He started, leaning back in laziness like a panther on a hot day. "What's your name?"

"James Potter." James answered, kicking Sirius's feet off of him for the second time. This time when Sirius fell off he landed on his face, and when he sat back up again he didn't dare try to put his feet on James. "You?" The hazel-eyed boy asked, laughter tingling in his tone.

"I'm Sirius."

James raised an eyebrow. "Serious about what?"

"No, like, that's my name."

"You're serious about your name?"

"Yes. But- no. Wait, what?" Sirius stuttered, causing both boys to explode with laughter. "Let's start over," he cleared his throat and started again in an overly pompous voice and exaggeratively fancy gestures, like he used when he was mocking his parents. "My name, is The Gloriously Brilliant Sirius Orion Black."

James laughed disbelievingly. "Wait, your name is Serious?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yes but not like the- you know…"

James stared at him for a long time. "What kind of name is 'Sirius'?"

"Well what kind of name is 'James'?" Sirius shot back defensively.

James shook his head, impressed. "That sounds like a constellation."

Sirius grinned. "Why thank you, young Mr. Potter. My brother tells me I'm a constipation, but I think I like your compliment slightly better."

They both laughed. At this point, James was fairly certain that he liked this 'Gloriously Brilliant Sirius Orion Black', and Sirius felt the same way towards James Potter.

"So where are you from then?" James asked, lazily using his wand to throw his trunk into the overhead compartment.

Sirius grimaced and manually moved his, jealous of the fact that this kid had clearly learned _useful_ (because as powerful as the dark magic his parents insisted on teaching him was, it couldn't actually do anything for him unless he got into a duel with a seventh-year or something) magic beforehand. "London. Islington, London, in a really crappy and overly protected house called Number 12 Grimmauld Place." He explained.

James nodded before changing the subject. "Those Slytherins that we hexed by the way, you don't think that'll come back to bite us in the butt later on, right?" He asked, although it was evident by his apathetic tone that the boy really wasn't worried.

"Nah, mate, we can take 'em." Sirius pointed out. He crawled up the seat and checked his trunk. Then, with a groan, he tsked. "Shame though, used my last dungbomb on those idiots. My parents' dumb house elf must've gone through my bag beforehand and taken all them out except the one I had in my pocket." He shook his head in disappointment.

James laughed, reached up into his trunk and pulled out a spare. "I've got loads of them." He said, tossing one particularly nasty looking dungbomb to Sirius. "Plus, we can always go to Zonkos if we need to restock, right?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow as he caught the dungbomb and started fiddling with it, making James nervous that it would accidentally activate at any second. "I heard you have to wait until you're a third-year and have the permission sheet and stuff."

James sent him a look of complete and utter horror. _"WHAT?"_ He shouted, causing the girl crouched up against the window to roll her eyes at him. "Are you _serious_?!"

Sirius grinned. "Of course. And you're James. Haven't we been through this?"

James playfully threw a nose-biting teacup at Sirius, which he easily deflected with a swish of his wand. "What's in yours, by the way?" James asked, curiously leaning closer to Sirius and holding out his wand in comparison, which (he was proud to notice) was a few inches longer.

Sirius shrugged and waved his around absentmindedly, accidentally a small flame to erupt from it. "Dragon-string or something. I dunno. And it's dark, and stick-like."

James raised an 'I-am-not-impressed' eyebrow at the dark haired boy. "Beautifully detailed description, Mr. Black." He said sarcastically, putting on a thick elegant accent that rivaled even Sirius's.

Sirius gave a mock bow. "And yours, Mr. Potter?"

"Why eleven inches and mahogany, of course. Pheonix feather. Pliant. _Excellent_ for Transfiguration. According to Ollivander at least."

Sirius gave a slow clap. "You memorize that all on your own, did you?"

James nodded and messed up his hair, making it even more untidy. "I'm so looking forward to Transfiguration this year."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's gonna be sweet. Hopefully we'll learn how to turn people into cockroaches or something."

James laughed. "Yeah, I can just imagine that crazy Slytherin who nearly tried to kill you a few minutes ago as like a moth or, y'know."

"A _moth_?"

"Yeah, you know, one of those really big ones that swoop in and freak you out when you're sleeping or something."

The door to the compartment swished open and a boy with greasy hair and an anxious look on his face stepped in. James and Sirius were too busy discussing weird Transfiguration spells, pranks, and other Hogwarts stuff to notice.

"Hope none of our teachers are too strict." James mused, fiddling with a sugar quill he had taken out of his trunk.

Sirius groaned. "I have cousins who're seventh years and stuff and they say Transfiguration's really tough, Charms' easy enough if you actually know what you're doing and pronounce stuff right, Herbology's a blow-off, Potions' annoying, DADA's really boring in the first year but gets continually better and stuff, and History of Magic is the most boring class ever. I've already picked out the ones I'm gonna make an effort to 'lose control of the staircases' before."

James cracked a grin. "Now, about that plan with the giant squid-" But before he could continue, the greasy haired boy said something that strongly caught his attention.

"You'd better be in Slytherin." Severus encouraged, and James sent him a look of complete disbelief and horror.

"Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" He asked Sirius, who had taken to his previous position of lounging against the window with his feet on James (which, after James stabbed them with the sugar quill he had been holding, immediately fell back to the floor).

Sirius shook his head with a grimace. "My whole family have been in Slytherin." He said, looking down bitterly.

"Blimey, I thought you seemed all right!" James exclaimed.

Sirius grinned. "Maybe I'll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

James lifted an invisible sword. "Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!" He exclaimed, and, upon Sirius's chuckle, knocked him upside the head with the invisible sword, causing Sirius to pretend to fall over in pain. The boys were about to continue with their invisible swordfight, when Severus made a small, disparaging noise and James turned to him with a raised, dangerous eyebrow.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No," said the boy, although his slight sneer said otherwise. "I mean, if you'd rather be brawny than brainy-"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" Interjected Sirius, with a taunting smirk on his face.

James roared with laughter, and the girl who had been sitting in the corner, not paying that much attention to either boy until this point stood up, looked from James to Sirius and back to James in complete disdain.

"Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment." She said, walking out of their compartment with a roll of her eyes.

"Oooo… 'Come on Severus, let's find another compartment,'" James and Sirius imitated in a high, overly proper and girly voice. James tried to trip Severus as he passed and shouted after him as the greasy haired boy slammed the door. "See ya, Snivellus!"

Sirius laughed and leaped from beside James to across from him, where he could sprawl across the whole seat and put his feet up in peace. James hardly seemed to notice, he was too busy staring out the compartment wistfully after the red-haired girl who had left them.

He blinked a few times as if getting out of a trance, and then, turning to Sirius, said with complete determination. "I will marry that girl by the time we graduate."

Sirius snorted. "That is _so_ not gonna happen."

"I'll bet you it will." James shot back defensively.

"I'll bet you it will not." Sirius argued.

"Will too!"

"Will not!"

This continued on for a while until both boys completely forgot what they were arguing about, and changed the subject entirely.

The two discussed magic and pranks and Hogwarts excitement as the train moved farther away from King's Cross and close to Hogwarts, when the compartment door slid open again and two boys stumbled in. One was taller, thin, and pale, with scars lining his face, tousled sandy blond hair and light green eyes. The other was short and stout, with mousy brown hair and wide, watery blue eyes. Both had already changed into their school robes, something that neither James nor Sirius had been bothered to do yet.

"Sorry," the taller one exclaimed, looking around the compartment anxiously. "I- everyone else is full, do you mind?"

Sirius and James exchanged raised eyebrows and looks that clearly read 'why not?'

"Sure."

A look of relief spread over both boys' faces as Remus slid his trunk into the overhead and carefully did the same with Peter's.

James gestured openly to the seats beside him, and Sirius nodded in welcome, but seemed to have no intention of moving his butt off out of its perfectly comfortable position. Remus sat down on the side closest to the compartment door and Peter wedged himself in between the two of him. James, who was beginning to feel very cramped, shouted over to his new friend Sirius to move his fat butt over and let someone sit with him.

"Make me." Sirius complained, not bothering to open his eyes.

James took out his wand and proclaimed a useful, easy spell his father had taught him, which caused everything metal in everyone's trunks to zoom towards Sirius's face, almost as if James had turned him into a human magnet. At first, a spoon from Peter's trunk stuck to Sirius's nose, and he pretended not to notice. Then, several magical metal instruments from Remus' attached themselves to each and every one of his fingers, and Sirius tried to shake them off stubbornly. Finally, Sirius screamed bloody murder when a huge dragon of galleons, sickles, and knuts came soaring straight towards his face from James's trunk. Sirius sat bolt upright in attempt to avoid the dragon of coins, which opened up a space beside him that James leaped towards and took before Sirius could lie down again. With a flick of his wand, he stopped the spell, and every single metal object that had attached itself to Sirius fell to the floor. "Ha!" He exclaimed, giving the very disgruntled Sirius a thumbs up.

Sirius mumbled something about 'not fair- freaking- leg room- you-" but seemed to be too busy stammering with frustration to get more than a few words out.

James scooped up his coins and tossed the others their possessions, staring at Remus' oddly shaped instruments in curiosity. Once everything was safely back in his trunk, Remus calmly pressed his back to the compartment door and cracked open a book (his third one today).

"You have _a lot_ of money." Peter stammered, staring at James like he was some kind of God. "And that spell was _so cool_!"

James gave an arrogant grin, while Sirius huffed and put his feet back on James' lap, causing the wizard to push him off again, adjusting his glasses like nothing had happened. "Oh don't be such a sore loser!" He admonished.

"Shut up. If we're carrying out that squid thing, I'm going to try and get some shut eye before tonight." Sirius muttered, closing his eyes and leaning back (but this time being careful not to let his feet go anywhere near James). After a few seconds of James explaining to Peter what exactly 'that squid thing' was (a prank that the two of them had developed before Peter and Remus came in), Remus being deeply engrossed in his book, and Sirius attempting to relax, he opened his eyes painfully.

Something in this room was giving him an awful headache. It felt like that one time Bellatrix had hexed him to be constantly thinking about Calculus and he needed to be transported to the hospital for 'scholarly overload' (something that Sirius believed to be a very real thing.) He looked around the room in confusion, until his eyes finally settled on Remus, who was calmly flipping through 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'.

Sirius let out a mortified gasp and slapped the book out of Remus's hands. "Are you _reading_?!" He asked in complete bewilderment and pain.

Remus looked at the shaggy-haired boy like he was an Azkaban escapee. "Yes…" He trailed off cautiously, reaching for his book. "Is that a problem?"

Sirius let out an Earthshattering sneeze that caused Peter to fall out of his seat with terror and James's glasses to crack. He wiped his nose. "I'm allergic to reading." He explained.

James laughed uncontrollably and tossed a rather stunned Remus his book back, or, started to at least, before Sirius reached out and snatched the book out of the air, flipping through it and coughing uncontrollably.

"You might want to get that medically looked at, Sirius." James pointed out, flicking his wand and saying 'Reparo' to instantly fix his glasses.

Sirius shrugged and closed Remus' copy. "I just find it better to burn all the books as opposed to stupid allergy medicine."

Remus glared at him horrified. "How could you?!" He demanded.

Sirius and James laughed maniacally. "Don't worry, mate." James whispered to Remus, "you and I'll hide them somewhere unsuspecting, like under his pillow."

Sirius let out another (this time, forced) mega loud sneeze, this time causing Peter, who had previously worked so hard to get back in his seat, to fall off again. James cracked up with laughter, and even Remus cracked a small, nervous smile.

"You're… joking, right?"

"Yeah. 'Course." Sirius said, although he handed Remus his book back like it was a used tissue and plopped it on his lap with disgust. "I'm Sirius, though, by the way."

"You're serious… and you're joking?" Remus asked with a confused, raised eyebrow.

Sirius grinned, and James rolled his eyes. "You know, if you didn't say it in times where people are bound to be confused, you probably wouldn't have to explain this whole 'Sirius' business to everyone."

Sirius laughed. "Oh yes James, this is _very_ _serious_ business."

Remus and Peter exchanged very confused looks. Sirius shook his head. "My name is Sirius, like, with an I." He paused for a second, as though thinking stuff over. "But you guys should _Siriusly_ start getting used to the puns because I have a feeling we're going to have a _Sirius_ good time using these all seven years."

"Please stop talking." James said, throwing his head back with laughter. "I'm seriously done with these puns."

Sirius raised an eyebrow and sent his friend a devious grin. "You're _Siriusly_ done with these puns?" James and Sirius then proceeded to have a three hour argument, with Peter cheering them on and a record breaking total of 257 Sirius-puns.

By this point, it was growing dark and Remus had reached the point where he couldn't possibly strain his eyes to read another page of the book, so he put it down and sighed tiredly.

"I don't think we've ever actually introduced ourselves." James said, cutting off Sirius mid-pun, and turned to Remus and Peter with a wide grin. "I'm James Potter."

"Remus Lupin."

"Peter Pettigrew."

"And I'm Sirius. Not kidding around here, I am very Sirius."

James, who had quite frankly had enough of this kid for one day, took off his shoe held it up threateningly. "I meant that's my name!" He shouted, leaning as far away from James and his shoe as possible. James laughed and threw it anyway.

Peter clapped in delight, and Remus cracked a smile.

"So are you guys ready for this?" James asked.

Sirius made a 'pssh'. "Absolutely. Ready to prank the school 'till it simply can't take anymore. Ready to show up my Slytherin family. Ready to learn enough magic to get back at this… thing." He gestured absentmindedly to a severely offended James Potter. "I am ready to rule to world!" Sirius shouted, extremely excited. And with that, he snatched the book out of Remus' hands and proceeded to run around the compartment using it as a drum.

"Are you serious right now?" Remus asked without thinking, snatching his book right back and realizing, with utter horror, that in all the chaos he had lost his spot.

"I'm _always_ Sirius."

"That's it!" James shouted, and then proceeded to tackle his new friend to the ground, shortly followed by a series of overdramatic screams from Sirius.

The compartment door opened and a plump lady stood at the side with a trolley of sweets. "Anything off the trolley dear- DEAR GOD WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" She shrieked upon seeing James and Sirius rolling playfully across the floor, screaming and clawing at each other.

James looked up in surprise, allowing Sirius to seize the opportunity to bite the hazel-eyed boy on his left wrist (which made Remus cringe and Peter's eyes widen like he had never seen anything so exciting).

James however, whose short attention span had just been drawn away to something else, tore Sirius's mouth away from his arm and stood up, hair more untidy than ever, glasses completely lopsided, and grinning like an idiot. "50 chocolate frogs, please." He said sweetly, grabbing several galleons from his pile and laying them on the cart. The trolley cart lady looked surprised but held out the frogs all the same, which James gladly took in his arms like they were his children, thanked her, and closed the compartment door.

"Fifty choco- what the bloody hell did you go and buy fifty chocolate frogs for?!" Sirius demanded sitting up with disbelief.

"Wha?" James defensively asked, his mouth already half full of frog as he looked up from the card he'd been holding in his hand. "I'm a collector. I don't eat all the frogs, so feel free to dig in, but I have 507 cards thus far, and I will not give up until I have them all." He said with a strong tone of determination.

Peter reached out and grabbed about half the stack. Sirius rolled his eyes and selected a few, and even Remus tediously reached over and grabbed one.

James snorted in disgust as he read the card. "Got seventeen of this guy, he keeps showing up!" He tossed the card absent mindedly in the air, where Peter grabbed it and licked all the remaining chocolate off before setting it aside. Remus examined the card and recognized the kind, old face and twinkling blue eyes from the most surprising day of his life.

"Hang on, this is Albus Dumbledore." He exclaimed, picking up the card and looking at it with fascination.

"Pe'er lick'd 'at." Sirius pointed out, his mouth full of chocolate, but Remus either didn't understand him or didn't care.

"He's the headmaster at Hogwarts, isn't he?" He asked, looking from James to Sirius to Peter expectantly.

"Yeah, but like I said, I have seventeen."

"I accidentally set all my cards on fire after a prank attempt on my brother totally backfired."

"There's no more chocolate on him."

Remus looked at his friends in bewilderment, trying to piece together what they were telling him. "You can have it!" James exclaimed, tearing open another card.

"Peter did lick it though." Sirius pointed out, scraping the final few crumbs of chocolate from his fingers before passing another card to James.

Remus stared at those twinkling blue eyes, still astonished that Dumbledore let someone like him, someone like Remus John Lupin, the werewolf, the monster, into a school as incredible as Hogwarts. He pocketed the card, a silent smile spreading across his face.

The rest of the train ride flew by. James and Sirius developed several pretty strong prank ideas, Peter had managed to eat the rest of the chocolate frogs, and Remus, while occasionally being dragged into conversations with the other three, mostly sat staring at them, lost deep in thought. He contemplated whether or not this would be successful; his worst fear was that it wouldn't be. What if his friends found out? What if someone told their parents and their parents complained to a Ministry official? Would he be kicked out of school? Or worse, what if he _bit_ someone? What if he doomed another student to live with the same curse he had been forced to live with since age five? The mere thought of it made Remus sick as he stared blankly off into space as Sirius and James roughhoused and Peter cheered them on excitedly.

About five minutes before the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, Sirius and James realized that they still hadn't changed into their school robes and anxiously rushed to get them on, changing at record speed in the compartment, and both were just finishing trying to figure out how ties worked (with excessive help from Remus) when the whistle blew and all four boys scrambled out of their compartment, superbly excited to begin their new life at Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2- Giant Squids and Sorting

The Marauders: Book 1 Chapter 2- The Giant Squid is a Real Life thing and Sorting for Sirius Black does Not Go as Planned

From the very first time Hagrid heard these kids scream bloody murder, he knew they were going to be this years' troublemakers.

After Remus, Peter, Sirius, and James leaped off the train, trunks in their hands, grins on their faces, and, in James' case, a chocolate frog peeping out from underneath his messy black hair. Sirius and James were still struggling to figure out how to tie their ties when they all heard a loud, booming voice shout "Firs'-years! Firs'-years over here!" The four turned around in unison to see a giant man with a large bushy beard and large black eyes.

Peter went slack-jawed and hid behind James. Remus stood perfectly still and stared at the half-giant in disbelief. James' mouth opened into a wide grin when he recognized Hagrid's warm smile from his father's fond stories. Sirius shrieked in pure terror and leaped into James' arms, causing everyone (James included) to send him questioning looks.

"Yes, you four 's well." Hagrid pointed out, gesturing for the young Marauders to join the rest of the first years on their trek to the boats. Remus and Peter shyly shuffled towards him, and James confidently strode to catch up with them, when he realized that Sirius was still frozen in place. He groaned and dragged the stuttering Sirius up to join the rest of the group.

"Are you Hagrid?" James asked, after managing to make his way through all the other first years to the front of the mob in order to walk beside Hagrid.

"Sure am." The half-giant replied, sending them a welcoming smile.

"My dad told me about you." James said, still dragging a frozen-with-fear Sirius behind him. "Charlus Potter. He was here like 40ish years ago, very mischievous." He flashed Hagrid a devilish grin.

Hagrid groaned, remembering all too well the mischief of a certain Charlus Potter, and then turned away to answer some other pestering first year's question.

James turned to his new found friends. "That's Hagrid." He explained. Remus nodded, still trying to take it all in, Peter's mouth had not yet returned to its un-slack position and now was doing a fairly professional job of showing off his three chins, and Sirius just stared at James in disbelief.

"That's a giant." He said.

James nodded. "Indeed. Well, half-giant actually I think."  
"That's a giant." Sirius repeated, still dazed.

A frown crossed its way across James' face, as was typical when he felt like he was being ignored. " _Half_ -giant." He re-insinuated.

Sirius blinked several times, staring blankly at Hagrid like he had never seen anything so strange in his life. "You know, he's really a nice guy." James pointed out defensively.

"That's a giant." Sirius repeated, and he did not stop with the whole staring-into-space-and-repeating-himself-stuff until the four of them were safely in a boat rowing itself across the black lake.

The thick layer of fog that had been persistent in England nearly all summer dispersed to reveal the glittering Hogwarts castle.

"WHOA." The Marauders shouted in unison, staring at the castle with wonder and awe.

"It's _huge_!" Peter exclaimed.

"You could say that again." Proclaimed Remus.

"It's _huge_!" Peter repeated, clearly not understanding the concept of a non-literal statement. Sirius examined his friends' huge grins, rolled his eyes, and looking down into the black lake in boredom. For a split second, he could swear he saw tentacles in the murky, opaque water, and the second he did, a brilliant idea started to formulate in Sirius Black's mind.

"You guys ever heard of the giant squid?"

Remus and Peter both shook their heads, but James sent him a knowing and sneaky smile. "I heard that he doesn't let boats cross unless someone gets sacrificed to him."

"Not permanently of course, just like… temporarily jumps in the lake." Sirius continued, pleased that James was so fast to catch on.

"But my dad told me if someone doesn't jump in, the squid'll eat _everyone_." James had officially transitioned into a creepy, ghost-story voice at this point, and Sirius nodded in agreement.

"Same with my cousins, and my parents, and nearly everyone else in my family. Apparently it's a pretty big deal. I'm surprised Hagrid hasn't already made the announcement."

"Maybe he did and we just didn't hear it." Suggested James.

By this point, Remus was pretty well aware that this whole thing was a bluff, but that didn't stop him from cracking a smile at the boys as they continued to tell their giant squid theories. Peter on the other hand looked like he was about to wet himself with fear.

"You know, I heard he's the Animagus of Godric Gryffindor." Sirius mused.

" _Oh yeah!_ " James shouted, beginning to get excited. "And whoever jumps in will get 500 house points, from Godric himself."

Sirius nodded, then paused, as if trying to remember something. "It's either that or it's the Animagus of Salazar Slytherin and whoever jumps in dies a very painful death."

At this point though, it had gotten so unreasonable that Remus had to intervene. "Wouldn't the Animagus of Salazar Slytherin be a snake?"

Sirius scoffed. "With that logic, the Animagus of Godric Gryffindor might as well be a Gryffin."

Remus snorted. "Yeah, cause that's really insensible." He pointed out sarcastically.

"Either way, I think one of us should jump into the lake." James mused, looking over at his three friends mischievously.

Sirius nodded in agreement. "It can't be me though. There are books down there, I'm allergic to books."

James rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well my hair gets messed up when it's wet."

Sirius made a sound like a balloon rapidly losing air. "I highly doubt that it's possible for your hair to get even _more_ messed up than it already is." He asked, raising an uncertain eyebrow.

"Well I can't do it." Remus stated plainly.

"Why not?" The two partners-in-crime protested.

"Because I'm allergic to water." Remus lied plainly, looking back at the castle.

James and Sirius struggled to hide their snickers, but Peter seemed to be having a melodramatic moment as he soaked it all in. "So if Sirius or Remus jumps in, they'll have allergic reactions, and if James jumps in his hair will have issues." He murmured, as if carefully trying to calculate a math equation in his head.

"Oh, my hair won't just have issues, it will be permanently dead." James said, just for the sake of increasing the drama.

Peter nodded like he was building up the courage to do something stupid, and before Remus had a chance to reach out and grab him, James had a chance to shout out 'just kidding!' or Sirius even had a chance to let out one single laugh, he turned and dived into the lake.

They all sat there for a few seconds, staring at the black water in complete shock and disbelief, and, when after several seconds, absolutely nothing happened, started to freak out.

"Can he swim?"

"Did he actually believe us?"

"Did we kill him?!"

"What if the giant squid ate him?"

"Wait. There actually _is_ a giant squid?"

" _Oh my bloody hell we've killed him!_ " Shouted Sirius, starting to have a mental breakdown.

Sirius and Remus stared at the water in horror for a prolonged period of time, when James threw off his robe, muttered something about already having a bad hair day, and jumped in after Peter. By now, students in the other boats were starting to stare. When neither James nor Peter had resurfaced, Sirius and Remus followed their two friends and plunged into the icy cold lake.

For a second, all went black for the four 11 year-olds, and then, one by one, the Giant Squid lifted them out from the depths of the lake and plopped them back down on the boat. First came Sirius, who screamed bloody murder so loud people in Singapore could hear. Then came Remus, who stood in the boat, convulsing with shock and petrified with disbelief. Next came James, who landed face first and gave a giant thumbs up so as to say 'that was thoroughly awesome.' Finally came Peter, whose weight tipped the boat over.

All four boys laughed uncontrollably as they tried to flip their boat right-side-up again. Once they finally succeeded, the rather miffed boat continued rowing them to Hogwarts, occasionally splashing James and Sirius with freezing bursts of icy water.

They arrived at the front steps slightly later than the other students, and were all sopping wet, with their robes plastered to their bodies, their hair plastered to their foreheads, and huge smirks plastered to their faces.

James grinned cockily at all the heads that turned to see what four morons had managed to land in the lake this time, while Peter looking around nervously, his lower lip trembling from the cold, Sirius's screams of before had turned into laughter by now, but it was still just as deafening and incessant. Remus rubbed the bridge of his nose, a huge migraine was making his head spin a million kilometers per hour.

" _Maybe I really am allergic to water_ …" He thought to himself. _"Either that or I'm getting close._ " He made a mental note to put up his calendar the instant he got into the dormitories and check it.

Hagrid came up behind the four of them, startling them all and causing Sirius and Peter to nearly wet themselves. "Yeh four." He exclaimed when he saw them. "Yer's seriously lucky the giant squid and I are on good terms or yeh might've 'een fish fodder." They all thanked him graciously, Peter even vowing to forever praise the ground that he walked on. Hagrid winked at them before walking up the steps to the castle.

Sirius sent his other three, sopping-wet friends a look. "We're _Siriusly_ lucky?"

Remus swatted him upside the head.

Laughing, James flipped his hair out from behind his glasses (he was right, water did not do that hair any miracles) and Sirius shook like a wet dog, splattering several other students beside him. A flash of red in his peripheral vision however caught James' eye and he staggered over to the girl he had seen on the train.

"Hi." He said, winking at her and giving a wave that would've seemed smooth and seductive if James' fingers hadn't still be wet and splashed everyone to the left and right of him. Lily wrinkled her nose in dislike. "I don't think we've ever formally introduced." James said. "I'm James Potter."

Lily stuck out her hand ( _'as a formality, and nothing more'_ she promised herself). "Lily Evans." Then, to her utter and upmost disgust, James took her hand and, instead of shaking it like a normal person would do, he _kissed_ it.

Lily could've smacked him. In fact, she probably would've, if the doors to the castle hadn't opened and a stern looking woman with square spectacles hadn't stepped out and ordered them all to be quiet. Focused entirely on this woman now, Lily gave James a silent push, and he zipped back to his friends to listen to McGonagall's speech.

"Students!" She proclaimed.

"Teacher!" Sirius shouted back, but he quickly shut up after a stern look McGonagall sent him.

McGonagall cleared her throat and continued. "Welcome to Hogwarts, if you'll follow me please…" She started into the corridor the huge mob of first years followed her in, James and Sirius, chattering amiably about who knows what, bringing up the rear.

They were led through the majestic castle, past the Great Hall, and into a small chamber, squeezing in to listen to the rest of the introduction.

"Welcome to Hogwarts." McGonagall declared. "You will soon join the rest of the students in the Great Hall for our start of term feast, but first, you must be sorted into your houses. The sorting ceremony is of great importance, because while you're here, your house will be like your family. Each year, the House Cup is awarded to the house with the most points. Any successes you have will earn points, any _troublemaking_ ," she seemed to be looking directly at the four Marauders as she spoke her next four words, "will lose your house points. The four houses are Gryffindor," Sirius and James shared a high-five, "Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. The sorting ceremony will begin in a moment. In the meantime, I suggest you dry yoursel- I mean, smarten yourselves up." She said, shooting the Marauders another look. James and Sirius just grinned cheekily back at her.

Once McGonagall left, it didn't take the four of them long to start talking again.

"Sorting ceremony, huh? What do you think they base it off of?" Peter asked.

Sirius shrugged. "I dunno. My parents say it doesn't matter just so long as I get into Slytherin, so I've gotten no help on that front, my cousins on the other hand-"

"You'd better not!" James interjected angrily. "Be in Slytherin, I mean. You'd better be in Gryffindor."

Sirius grinned. "Why, dear Potter? Are you terrified at the thought of me being your enemy?" He asked, raising a taunting eyebrow.

James laughed and rolled his eyes. "You wish. I just think it'll be a lot easier to carry out everything we've planned if we're in the same dorm."

"Aw, I was starting to think I was someone special." Sirius pouted.

"You don't think they'll make us do anything, right?" Peter inquired, still shivering from his little misadventure in the lake.

"Completely no idea. Andromeda says you just put on a hat, but Narcissa says they take blood samples and test you based on your heritage, and Bella said… what'd Bella say?"

"My dad says you have to do this really complicated transfiguration-charm-thing."

"My uncle said that everyone has told me that you have to see how many toasters you can light on fire in one minute."

"My mum swears it's something super dangerous and hard."

"Oh yeah! Bella said you have to fight off a real-life werewolf!" Sirius exclaimed, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

Peter let out a mortified scream, James laughed in disbelief, and Remus felt as though someone had just taken a large, red-hot, iron stake and branded him with it.

"I doubt they'll make anyone fight off a werewolf." Remus said coolly. "Besides, it's not even a full moon tonight." _'And I would know…'_ He thought to himself.

Sirius looked up at tiny sliver of white in disappointment. "Oh, yeah." He muttered. "Darnit."

Remus shook his head darkly, but all his friends were too busy coming up with ridiculous sorting scenarios to notice.

"What if they make us bring back dinosaurs?"

"And ride them!"

"Or what if we're supposed to invent our own spell or something?"

"Mates, what if it's just something stupid like a personality test or something?"

"No, it's gonna be something that actually shows skill, like fighting off a werewolf."

"Or what if-?" But Peter was unable to continue his theory for at that moment, the doors to the Great Hall swung open and the first years walked in, staring at the bewitched sky in awe.

Sirius could clearly see the four unique tables, and the different houses they stood for. On one side of the Great Hall were the Gryffindors, a rowdy, excitable, brave bunch that he was sure he'd feel much more at home with. On the complete other side were the Slytherins, the house that his parents were sorted into, and their parents before them, and their parents before them, and all his aunts and uncles and cousins and great-cousins and familial members he wasn't even sure _how_ he was related to or _why_ he remembered them, but it was as if the memories of a million Blacks flooded through him at that moment.

McGonagall was at the front of the hall, where the teachers sat, standing beside a stool with a tattered black hat on top. "This is the Sorting Hat." She explained. "When it is placed on your head, it will tell you where you belong. This house will be your family for the next seven years, so I suggest you don't make yourself look like an idiot in front of them on the first day." James and Sirius scratched the back of their necks and exchanged a guilty grin.

"Abbott, Michelle." McGonagall called. A girl with long braids and a nervous look on her face went up and sat on the stool. McGonagall placed the sorting hat on her head.

"Ravenclaw!" It cried out after a few seconds of contemplation.

"Anderson, Victor."

"Hufflepuff!"

"Atkins, Beatrice."

"Hufflepuff!"

"Brooks, Natalie."

"Slytherin!"

"Black, Sirius."

Sirius felt a jolt go up his spine as if he had just been struck with a billion bolts of lightning. He walked up to the stool, trying to seem as cool, calm, and collected as possible. _"Whatever happens, happens."_ He tried to reassure himself, but that made it seem like the whole situation was entirely out of control, which only made the young Black feel more sick to his stomach. He sat down on the stool, limbs shaking with anxiety.

" _Interesting…"_ The Sorting Hat whispered in his ear. _"Very interesting."_

"Yeah. I know. I have a lot of disturbing stuff up there." Sirius replied, probably a bit louder than he should've, for several students in the first row snickered, but he was too busy caught up in the Sorting Hat's decision to notice.

" _You could, very easily, be in Slytherin, you know."_ Sirius thought about what he said, and couldn't help but shake his head. _"But I take it that that is not what you desire. What do you want out of Hogwarts, Mr. Black?"_

The more Sirius thought it over, the more he realized James was right on two fronts. (1) This was just some stupid old personality test, and (2) All the prank planning the two of them had done on the train ride here, all the friends he had made, all the trouble he had gotten himself in for them already, it would really be a shame if they weren't all in Gryffindor together.

" _Interesting indeed…"_ The Sorting Hat mused, almost as if he was reading Sirius's thoughts. _"And I must admit, your willingness to defy what your family wants of you for what you want for yourself is neither kind, nor wise, but it is very, very brave."_

"Gryffindor!" The Sorting Hat shouted, and Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. He pranced over to the Gryffindor table, sticking his tongue out at his shocked relatives over on the Slytherin side before plopping down on the table and turning to see the rest of the ceremony, a grin creeping across his face.

A bunch of other people were put into their respective houses that none of the Marauders had ever met before. Lily was sorted into Gryffindor, of course, and the second she saw Sirius she sniffed and turned away from him to start up a conversation with someone else.

Sirius rolled his eyes and groaned internally. _"Of all the people in the whole school, James, and you had to choose this stuck-up prat?"_ He muttered to himself.

"Lupin, Remus."

Remus took a deep breath and climbed up to the stool. He was shuddering with fear of being rejected as McGonagall put the hat on his head.

" _Intelligence."_ Was the first thing the hat said. _"Diligence. But also… something else… am I getting…"_ He trailed off, and Remus became seriously worried that the hat would find out about his lycanthropy. What would happen if he did? Would he exclaim it to the whole school? Would he put Remus into a house that he'd never succeed in? Would he just refuse to sort him at all? _"I am getting bravery, much bravery, in a time when you had noone to rely on but yourself. I am seeing that it took courage for you to make it through the last six years of your life, and especially to come here. You, Remus John Lupin, are one brave little fuzzball."_

"Gryffindor!"

Remus could've collapsed with relief at that moment, but he managed to make it to the Gryffindor table and sit down next to Sirius (who clapped him on the back so hard he nearly hit the floor face-first). _"Gryffindor…"_ Remus couldn't help but think with disbelief. _"With Sirius and Lily and most likely James as well."_

The sorting hat went through several more people before reaching the P's. Peter was called up the sorting hat seemed to have a difficult time trying to find a place for him, but, upon remembering what had happened in the lake, eventually decided on Gryffindor.

Finally, finally, _finally_ , after what felt like a lifetime of waiting for the 11 year-old boy, Professor McGonagall called out "Potter, James."

James sped right up to the stool and sat down immediately, ready to get into his house and start partying with his friends ASAP. He had been eyeing the treacle tart for quite a while now, and simply could not wait to sink his teeth into it and-

" _Hm."_ The Sorting Hat said, and James stopped his treacle tart fantasies and looked up at the hat sitting on top of his head in utter horror.

"What do you mean 'hm'?" James asked.

" _Well, Mr. Potter, the issue is, I'm afraid you're not exactly a wizard."_

James felt like dying right then and there. He was about to stand up, scream, throw the Sorting Hat out the window and sort _himself_ into Gryffindor. The Sorting Hat, sensing the oncoming storm that was about to occur, dropped the act immediately.

" _I was kidding, Mr. Potter. Your ancestors have pulled so many pranks at this school that I thought for once I would get one of you back. Go to your table and eat that treacle tart."_

"Gryffindor!"

James stood up and flounced over to the Gryffindor table, sending the Sorting Hat one final glare before sitting down between Sirius and Remus and across from Lily and Peter.

"You looked terrified up there for a second." Sirius pointed out, observing the way James had managed to fit 20 treacle tarts onto his one tiny dessert plate.

James rolled his eyes and tried to talk with his mouthful, but, realizing he was in front of Lily, forced himself to wait until he swallowed. "The Sorting Hat was being a jerk and fooled me into thinking I wasn't a wizard, but he couldn't carry out the feint and gave in at the last second. I guess I was just too fabulous for him to handle."

Lily sent him a look of disgust, but Sirius let out a snort of laughter that sent pumpkin juice squirting out of his nose.

"Snape, Severus."

"Slytherin!" The sorting hat called out, barely even touching Severus' head.

Lily craned over James and Sirius' necks to send Severus an apologetic look.

"Evans, it's better that he's over there anyway." James assured.

"Yeah." Sirius agreed. "Maybe being near the potions classroom will give him a chance to finally get his hands on some shampoo."

James, Remus, and Peter snickered with laughter while Lily just turned away in disgust.

After a highly satisfying feast (in which James crammed down at least 30 treacle tarts, Sirius drank 17 jugs of pumpkin juice, Remus ate 92 bars of chocolate, and Peter simply devoured every other food that had been put in front of the Marauders), the houses were brought back up to their common rooms.

The Gryffindor Prefect, a 5th year with a perfectly polished badge, a pompous air to him and a strong desire to constantly remind students of the rules, explained the password 'Sticky Semblances', the rules of the common room (which Sirius and James chose right then and there to actively ignore every day for the rest of their Hogwarts careers), that the boys' dormitories were to the left, the girls' to the right, and that under no circumstances, was anyone to trade dorms or cross between the girls and boys hallway.

He droned on about a bunch of other stuff, but at this point, everyone was so tired that not even Lily or Remus bothered to listen. Finally, after what felt like a millenium to someone with as short of an attention span as James Potter, the Prefect explained that their trunks and all their possessions were already in their dormitories and that they were free to go upstairs and go to bed.

Much to their delight, all four Marauders were put in the same four four-poster dorm. Their stuff was already placed next to the bed they were 'supposed' to have, but, much to Remus and James' horror alike, Remus had the window bed next to Sirius, and it took about a millisecond for James and Remus to trade.

Peter looked around the room at his dorm-mates' possessions in disappointment. "Does noone have an owl?" He asked, starting to see a serious flaw in the communication system in Hogwarts.

Remus shook his head grimly as he started to unpack his neatly folded uniforms. "My parents don't trust me with pets." He said, forcing the (rather gruesome) memory of Asher, the family cat from four years ago, and how he was an especially curious cat who didn't like being kept out of the basement during full moons, out of his mind.

"Mine offered to buy me one, but I spent nearly all the money on quidditch gear." James pointed out, leaning back on his bed with a shrug.

"Mate, you can't even play until your second year." Sirius pointed out, lounging across his mattress and letting out a loud yawn.

"Meh. I think they'll make an exception when they see me."

"I don't think-"

" _When they see me_." James repeated forcefully, putting an end to the matter with him getting the last word. "What about you, Siri? You don't have a pet either."

Sirius shrugged and let out another loud yawn. "My parents have this really pretty snowy owl that I've been obsessed with since age three, they told me that once I get into Slytherin I can just use that." He laughed. "Looks like that plan backfired."

"Yeah, sorry if you get disowned." James said in a tone that clearly stated 'I'm not sorry at all, I'm just really tired and had too much treacle tart, but I'm going to tell you I'm sorry because that's the nice, friendly thing to do.'

"Pssh." Sirius exclaimed, acting like it was no big deal. He turned over to face James and shot him a grin. "I have a feeling it'll be worth it."

Remus, who had already unpacked and neatly stored clothes and textbooks, then turned to a smaller trunk-within-a-trunk that he had carefully checked and rechecked before boarding the train. Inside was an extendable stick, a black cloak, a letter to Madam Pomfrey (again), 360 'Remus's mother is ill, please excuse him for the night' parent-signed notes, and a tattered, dirty, coffee-spilled calendar that acted as both a typical day calendar and a lunar warning system. He had struggled to avoid drawing a huge red circle around every full moon of the year, terrified that he might miss one, but Remus didn't want to let anyone find out, in case they went straight to their parents who complained to the Ministry, so he tried his best to be subtle about it. This wall calendar though was seriously starting to fall apart, and had several stab marks from when Remus had simply wanted to give up on life altogether and took it all out on this fragile little wall calendar.

"Do you guys mind if I put this up?" Remus asked nervously.

Peter raised an eyebrow. "No, by all means."

James looked at it suspiciously, making Remus's heart race faster than a dragon in the process. "What quidditch team is on there?" He asked.

"Qui- uh, no." Remus answered, taking few words to clear up his own confusion at the bluntness of James's question. "It's landscape stuff. But if you don't like landscape, that's fine, because its," he gestured to the month of September, which was originally meant to look like the beach but at faded and frayed and ripped so much that now it looked like a puddle surrounded by ashes. "It's not really… intact."

James nodded. "Yeah, Remus mate, you put that thing up if your heart desires. As long as it doesn't have the Chuddey Cannons on it, I'm all for calendars."

"Oi, what's wrong with the Chuddey Cannons?" Peter shot back, looking hurt, but James ignored him and continued talking to Remus.

"Sirius is the one who's allergic to reading though."

Upon hearing his name, Sirius lazily lifted his head up from the pillow and looked drowsily at Remus. When the dingy calendar he was holding came into clear view, Sirius gasped in horror and shook his head. "Uh-uh. No. Put that down." He shoved his hand in his bag, head shaking furiously. "Down, Remus, drop it."

Remus wasn't sure what to do. Sure, he could just hide the calendar and still look at it every night, but what if he got so caught up in homework that he forgot? What if he lost it, and then had no way to tell when it would be another full moon? Then he would transform when he was sleeping and bite his new friends and Dumbledore would kick him out of the school for sure and he'd go to Azkaban for life, and-

"I mean, do you like calendars?" Sirius asked, interjecting Remus's paranoid thoughts, his bag reached all the way up to his shoulder at this point.

Remus bit his lower lip and nodded hastily, trying not to let his anxiety be too evident, which was harder than it looked if someone had as much to be anxious about as Remus. "It's just- I kind of-" He stammered, trying to think of an excuse better than 'I need it to see full moons that way I don't kill you all in your sleep', which he figured was probably not the best thing to say to a room full of the boys he would be spending the next seven years with.

"Gosh Sirius you're such a prat!" James exclaimed, throwing a pillow at him.

"Ow!"

"Remus R, J, Lupin." James said, looking at Lupin's trunk to get the middle initial. "If you want to have a calendar, then you can have a calendar. I will personally fight Black to give you the right to put a calendar up in this room."

Sirius snorted. "Fight me with what? Pillows?" Another pillow went soaring from James's bed to Sirius's, which resulted in a very loud shriek from the latter.

Remus felt a huge lump begin to form in the back of his throat. He sighed and tried again to develop an excuse, "It's not a major thing, I just kind of-"

"Ha! Ha!" Sirius shouted, pulling a large piece of wrapped cardboard from his bag and going from his bed to Remus's in one swift leap. "That thing is old. Plus, it only has dates and lunar cycles." Sirius pointed out. By now, a very interested James and Peter had crawled out of beds to see what exactly the commotion was about. " _This_ little beauty on the other hand, I got for my birthday, and I haven't exactly gotten around to opening it yet because you know, been busy with stuff." Sirius continued with an impatient wave of his hand. He offered it to Remus, who felt the lump in his throat turn into something that tasted rather like hot chocolate. "I don't actually know _what_ it is, but it's definitely got a lot of stuff, because it's big."

"You haven't unwrapped it and you got it for your birthday?" James asked with a snort. "Isn't your birthday in November?"

"Shut up, it's from my least favorite uncle, who knew that the mere mention of due dates terrified the crap out of me, so I never really had a reason to open it until dear Remus here started having… um…" He picked up Remus's old lunar calendar with two fingers and the entire month of March fell out from the binding. "Complications."

Remus was too fascinated in the huge, thick piece of cardboard that Sirius had just given him though to pay attention to Sirius's insulting of his old calendar. He carefully broke the seal and started to unwrap the wrapping where it had been taped. After a few seconds of awkward, uncharacteristic silence, he looked up at his friends to see what was wrong. All three of them were staring at him distastefully.

"What?" Asked Remus defensively.

"You have no idea how to unwrap a present, do you?" James asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

"I- of course I know how to unwrap a present!" Remus exclaimed. "I am just savoring the moment."

Sirius, James, and Peter exchanged 'can-you-believe-this-guy' glances, before rolling up their sleeves and bouncing on Remus's bed. "Open now, savor later." Remus wanted to point out that that's not really how it worked, but before he really had the time to open his mouth the gift was unwrapped and all four Marauders were staring at it in wonder and awe.

This monthly wall calendar was _huge_ , it had giant spaces, millions of things labeled: from holidays to random anniversaries to the birthdays of Black family members. Best of all (to Remus at least), each day marked with a full moon had a giant 3-D white circle swirling around, making it impossible to write over and impossible to miss. On top of that, it was so thick…

"How far does this thing go?" Remus asked, trying to flip to the very back.

Sirius shrugged. "It's 120 pages, I think, so 10 years, so… until we graduate I think."

James and Remus stared at Sirius for a very long time. "Sirius… we graduate in seven years…" James explained, looking at his friend warily.

Sirius looks affronted. "What?! I got this five years ago! I thought we only had to go through five years and then we were free from studying! Now we have to-"

Remus finally reached the end. "It's twelve years." He interrupted, feeling a strong waterfall of happiness wash over him. "It'll last us till we graduate."

"It's bewitched too." Sirius added. "I think he told me that if you have a due date coming up in the next 24 hours it'll flash red 10 times every hour, and then, if you still haven't erased it, will start following you to class screaming life quotes about procrastination and stuff." He shuddered. James and Peter backed away in horror.

Remus pinned the calendar up using magic and just stared at it with a huge grin spreading across his face. "It's amazing! Thank you." A combination of relief and pleasant disbelief caused him to reach out and pull Sirius into a hug.

Sirius (who was clearly not a hugger yet) made a noise like a drowning cat. "Meh." He finally said. "I just didn't want it following me around yelling due dates at me and everything."

James smiled at the two of them. He was having a moment, it was happy, it was emotional, it was great starter to a great year… and then Sirius had to ruin it all.

"Besides, if you're going to be the official calendar-keeper of the BDE, you need a good one." Sirius pointed out, halfway through changing into his nightclothes.

"BDE?" James questioned.

"Bed?" Peter suggested, evidently lacking in his spelling skills.

"No. The BDE." Sirius explained, leaping again from Remus's bed to his own in one swift motion. "The Best Dormitory Ever."

"You sound like a teenage girl." James pointed out, changing at record speed, laying down, taking off his glasses and rolling his eyes.

Sirius gasped in mock surprise. "My secret's out! Oh no! What do I do?!" He exclaimed in a lofty voice causing an already-tucked-in Peter to crack up with laughter and Remus to grin as he changed out of his robes and into his nightclothes under the covers.

With a wave of his wand, James turned out the lights. They lay there in comfortable silence for a few minutes before James realized that something was desperately wrong. "Sirius." He whispered.

"I'm sleeping." Sirius murmured back.

James thought that was a pretty stupid lie, so he reached for his wand and poked Sirius a few times in the face. "Sirius. Sirius. Sirius."

"What?!" A disgruntled Sirius moaned.

"You have my pillow." James said.

"It's on the floor." Sirius gestured in the general direction of 'down'. "You can get up and get it."

"I can't." James replied. By now the two of them had officially stopped the whole 'whispering' act and were talking at normal volume, waking up Peter and alerting Remus in the process.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm already under the covers."

"Too bad."

"But _Sirius_!" James whined.

"What's the matter?" Remus called over to the two window beds.

"Sirius isn't giving me my pillow back and it's hurting my feelings." James said in mock-pain.

Remus groaned, rolled out of bed and staggered over to throw James his pillow. "Happy?"

James nodded. "You're the best, Remus."

Remus acknowledged that fact tiredly and collapsed back onto his bed. He couldn't explain it, but he had the feeling that he would be doing this sort of stupid stuff for his friends a lot.

"Guys, I'm hungry." Peter said in a perky voice.

"Are you serious?!" Remus asked. How on earth anyone could be hungry after such a big feast struck him as completely bizarre.

"No." Sirius snickered from across the room. "He's not Sirius. I am."

James, Remus, and Peter all groaned and threw their pillows at Sirius in unison.

Sirius laughed. "I don't see how this is supposed to _dis_ courage me from making puns. The way I see it, I just got 3 free pillows, and now James has to wake up Remus again because he just lost his only pillow to the glorious puns of Sirius Black. This isn't a punishment, this is a blessing. It's nice to know that you guys are sacrificing to the right deity nowadays. Now-"

"Silencio." James muttered under his breath.

Four grins slowly grew across four maraudering faces. It was going to be a great year.


	3. Chapter 3- James Potter's Many Talents

The Marauders Book 1 Chapter 3- The many talents of James Potter

"Good morning class, and welcome to your first flying lesson." Madam Hooch declared.

It was 7am, and the Marauders' first class on their first day of their first year was Quidditch. James had been literally jumping with joy when he found this out, and had woken all the others up at five to 'help him get ready'.

Helping James Potter 'get ready', Sirius, Remus, and Peter had soon discovered, was not as easy as it might seem. James was determined to accomplish the impossible feat of making the Gryffindor Quidditch team in his first year, and knew that the quickest way to do that was to blow everyone away in his first flying class. So, despite Sirius's grumbles, the four of them had played 3 games of makeshift-quidditch in their dormitory, with Remus as a ref, Peter as a bludger, pillows as Quaffles, and the sleeping Sirius's face as the hooped goal post. Finally, at 6:45, James had lead them all down to breakfast, feeling rather proud of the fact that he had managed to score 831 goals, and beyond excited to get to first class.

"It isn't even a tryout." Sirius had pointed out, grumbling as he scarved down another slice of bacon. "It's 'ust 'ike, a cla', mate." He'd continued with his mouth full.

James shook his head. "Just let them see the amount of skill that I am capable of. They will be impressed, and I will be on the team. Might even make team captain." He'd pointed out happily. "If they know what they're doing, that is."

Now the four of them stood out on the Quidditch field alongside their fellow Gryffindors and the Slytherins, James trying to keep his excitement under control and the other three just trying to keep their eyes open.

The Quidditch pitch was almost empty, save for their class and a few 6th year Slytherins up the stands pointing down at them and snickering. James puffed up his chest. _"They won't be laughing when we win the Quidditch cup."_ He thought to himself smugly.

"Hold out your right hand over your broom and say: 'Up.'" Madam Hooch ordered.

James got it on the first try, and grinned confidently at the rest of his friends. Remus's broom seemed to be inching away from him as if it was terrified of the 11 year old boy. Peter was struggling to get his to move at all. Sirius especially seemed to be having broom issues.

"Up!" He shouted for the fiftieth time, and the broom moved to the right. "Up!" It moved to the left. " _Up_!" It did the hokey-pokey.

"Mr. Potter, did you get that up on your first try?" Madam Hooch asked, her eyebrows raised, clearly impressed.

James nodded proudly. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did." He shrugged, pretending to be modest (which was a skill he had not necessarily accomplished yet). "But no biggie."

She winked at him and James felt his heart soar.

Sirius on the other hand was starting to feel very frustrated with his broom. A maniacal laugh up in the stands caught his attention and Sirius looked up to see his cousins smirking expectantly at him. He glanced behind him to make sure Hooch wasn't looking and then, subtly as he could manage, flipped them off. By this point, everyone, even Severus, had managed to get their brooms of the ground and into their hands except for Sirius.

"Up, I tell you! Up!" He exclaimed. Finally, the broom soared up and smacked him in the face. Sirius cursed loudly, but at least now he had a broom in his hands.

"Now, I want you to mount your brooms, and…" But James was hardly listening to what Madam Hooch was saying. Instead, he found himself much more intrigued by the way the 6th year Slytherins were looking at Sirius with glinting eyes and passing Galleons back and forth as if making bets. James looked at the broom Sirius was holding and how in shook rather tensely in his hands like a bomb about to go off. With a wave of realization, James realized they had jinxed the broom. Whoever hexed it didn't do that impressive of a job, he noticed, but an inexperienced flyer would most likely be thrown off thirty feet into the air and crack their skull open.

"Sirius, have you ever flown before?" James whispered.

Sirius scoffed. "Of course I have, I've crashed my brothers' broomstick into priceless family heirlooms I don't know how many times."

James rolled his eyes. It was clear by this point that if anyone had a chance on this broom, it was him. "Trade brooms with me." He ordered.

Sirius raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. "Why?"

"Very good, Ms. Evans. Now, the most important thing to remember when flying is…"

"Because yours is shinier and when I make the paper for youngest Quidditch captain ever, I want the broom to look exceptionally shiny." James lied, talking to Sirius through the corner of his mouth.

Sirius sighed. "If I trade with you, will you let me sleep in tomorrow?"

James nodded. "As late as your soul desires."

"Now, on the count of three, I want you to kick up from the broom, hover a few feet, and then land back down." She sent James a look as if to say 'bear with me and then we'll see what you can do.'

"One." Madam Hooch turned away from the Gryffindors to look at the Slytherins, making sure they were all ready as well.

"Two." In a split second, James and Sirius swapped brooms. The second James' hand touched the handle, he knew the broom was hexed. _"Alright you little bugger, let's see what they did to you."_

"Three!"

20+ students kicked off from the ground. Remus, Peter, and Severus's brooms refused to do anything, Sirius and Lily actually succeeded in doing what Madam Hooch asked them to do (although they were shaking quite a bit), and James went soaring up at 150kmph.

Wind rocketed towards his face and ripped through his untidy black hair. James laughed with delight. It took him about three seconds to figure out how to work the hexed broom. He could still control it with a slight move of his finger and go in all the basic directions and stuff, it just seemed to have a set speed of 'deathly fast'. Seeing everyone (Madam Hooch included) stare up at him in awe did nothing to fix his ego. Whooping with glee, the hazel-eyed boy aimed back down to his friends. James was almost back on the ground when he realized that he couldn't stop the broom.

Not only was the broom hexed to not slow down, but he couldn't even stop it the normal way either. Plummeting to the ground, he felt both terrified and exhilarated; James pulled up inches before crashing, the tail of the old Nimbus scraping the grass. He then zoomed up into the atmosphere again, buying himself enough time to learn how to stop it.

The whole class (and the 6th year Slytherins) stared up in shock for at least a full minute, before Sirius burst into laughter. "Show-off!" He shouted.

Miraculously, James heard him, and shot his friends a cheeky grin. He changed directions, starting to plummet back to the earth again. "And this!" He shouted, seriously trying to feign having control over the hexed broom. Without losing a millisecond of speed, James took off his shoe and threw it at the hoop. He made it. Sirius, Remus, and Peter roared with delight, and even Lily looked on with awe. "Is why I should be on the team!" Madam Hooch stared up at him, shaking her head in complete disbelief, a grin stretching across her shocked face.

Up in the stands, a furious Bellatrix muttered something under her breath, and James's broom doubled in speed. Barely managing to hold on, but still acting as cocky and confident as ever, James zoomed off the Quidditch pitch and towards the castle.

Madam Hooch laughed. "Alright, Mr. Potter, you've made your point. Come back, land it, and then we'll discuss actual tryouts!" She called, her voice shrilling across the entire fields so nearly everyone within a mile radius could hear. "Mr. Potter?" But James was nowhere to be found.

Sirius looked around, grinning like an idiot, half expecting for James to zoom out from one of the stands and smack him in the face with another pillow, when his eyes landed on Bellatrix, Narcissa, Rodolphus Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, all smirking evilly at each other.

"They hexed it!" He muttered under his breath. "He can't stop the broom, they hexed it!" Sirius hissed to Remus and Peter. "They thought I was going to ride it, and did you see how fast that thing was? I wouldn't've survived a second, but James must've figured this out before me and convinced me to switch. They hexed it!"

After a few seconds of confusion, Remus's eyes widened. "So James's stuck on a broom going 300kmph to who knows where and he has no way to stop or slow it down?"

"Pretty much yeah." Sirius threw his hand up into the air. "Hey Hoops, Remus is having urethal issues, he needs our help to take him back to the castle!" Then, without waiting for a response, he dragged an angry Remus and a bewildered Peter off of the pitch. The three of them sprinted off to Hogwarts castle.

James meanwhile was having one heck of a time trying to maneuver his broom around the grounds without crashing into anything and killing himself. He ripped over Hagrid's hut, weaved through the Forbidden forest, and spun circles around the entirety of the castle. He strained his brain for something one of his parents had told him about how to stop a hexed broom. His father had taught him plenty of warning signs that a broom _was_ hexed, but had completely grazed over how to fix one. Charlus Potter had most likely just assumed that if his son knew how to identify a hexed broomstick, he wouldn't be stupid enough to ride one. Five minutes in and he had no idea how to stop the broom. Ten minutes in and he _still_ had nothing. Fifteen minutes in and James was just about ready to jump off altogether. Twenty minutes in however, he resorted to Operation 'INCOMING'.

Inside the castle that James had successfully flown 13 circles around, Professor McGonagall's 7th year NEWT transfiguration class of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors was learning the formulas for human transformation. It had been a relatively peaceful class for McGonagall, kind of boring, as after five minutes of exciting demonstrations, they needed to move on to more technical elements of human-to-animal transfiguration, which meant formula after formula after formula. Professor McGonagall pointed to the list of numbers she had been using magic to write on the chalkboard. "Now your homework tonight is to read the following pages and write a 50 page essay explaining wh-"

"INCOMING!"

McGonagall and everyone in her class whipped around to see a boy with glasses and crazy black hair flying at record speed straight towards their window. McGonagall whipped out her wand and turned the window's glass into a waterfall just in time for the rider on the other end to come out soaked instead of scarred. James Potter soared into the room and jumped off the broom on the first chance he got. Much to everyone's surprise (except James himself that is), the broom continued flying even without a rider. It tore across the classroom at super speed, shredding textbook after textbook and was headed straight for the door to the rest of the school when a tall, long-haired Ravenclaw girl stood up, bared her wand, and shouted a spell that James could swear sounded like 'your mom ate strawberries', but he couldn't be quite sure. The rogue broom turned into a wind-up toy and ceased to move.

After a few seconds of dead silence, a disgruntled and disbelieving McGonagall cleared her throat. "Yes, well, seeing as your textbooks have been shredded and at least some of us clearly remember past classes, you have no homework tonight. Class dismissed." The class cheered and zoomed out of the room before McGonagall could change her mind. James swore however that at least five people gave him a 'praise you almighty one who relieved us of killer NEWT homework' gesture before joining the mob of happy students outside.

Once her class was gone, McGonagall turned to James and sighed. He sent her a cheeky grin, still trying to catch his breath after what had just happened. "Mr. Potter, is it? James Potter?"

James smirked and shook his hair, splattering everything within a five mile radius of him. "The one and only."

"Mr. Potter, why is it that I've only seen you two times-"

"Well, if you insist-" But McGonagall cut off his interruption with a stern look.

"Why is it that I've only seen you two times this year and both times you've proved to be sopping wet, thoroughly annoying and an undeniable troublemaker?"

James shrugged and wiped off his glasses. "I was born that way." He admitted. "Fabulous."

McGonagall sighed and went over to her desk. "I have something for you." She said, summoning what looked like a Post-it from one of its drawers.

James got excited. "Really? What is it? Is it like a super cool award for being able to handle that broomstick? Do I get to be Quidditch captain?"

McGonagall shook her head and continued scribbling on the notecard. "Nope, it's something that I think you'll find suits you even more."

James frowned in concentration. _"Suits me even more than Quidditch Captain?"_ He thought. _"Does a thing even exist?"_ "Are you sure I'm meant for this special something?"

"Oh yes." McGonagall replied, finalizing her signature on the slip of paper. "Seeing as you and your broomstick broke my window, shredded my students' textbooks and deprived them of much desired homework assignment, I think this will suit you quite well. See you tonight, Mr. Potter."

James wanted to point out that the words 'desire' and 'homework' should never be used right next to each other, but before he had a chance, McGonagall gave him the slip and sent him to his next class.

"Detention?!" Sirius shrieked, looking at James in disbelief. "For what? Surviving a hexed broom and giving her students the chance not only to use magic, but also to get out of homework? That's got to be one of the most ludicrous reasons ever, mate."

The young Marauders had met up again inside their 2nd class, History of Magic, and had spent its entirety thus far listening to James instead of the most boring Professor Binns.

"I know!" James exclaimed, frustrated. "And even when I explained to her that _I_ didn't hex the broom, she still told me it was stupid of me to ride it even though I knew it was hexed. Apparently, I should've told Madam Hooch instead of endangering my life."

Peter gasped. "You totally could handle it though."

"That's what I told her! But she was all 'arrogance is not an excuse Mr. Potter, I'll see you at 7 o'clock, sharp.'" James said, imitating Professor McGonagall in a lofty voice.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I assume you'll be out by ten though, want to go exploring after she lets you out?"

James shot him a mischievous grin. "You know it, mate. We need to find a way to get to Hogsmeade before third year anyway. Remus, Peter, you guys on board?"

Peter nodded excitedly and Remus looked at the three of them blankly. _"Idiots…"_ He thought to himself, but oddly he couldn't convince himself to say no, so all that came out was an unusually determined "absolutely."

"We won't manage to sneak around the grounds for too long though." Remus pointed out. "We'll be caught, and then we'll _all_ have detention. We either have to take a secret passageway or use an Invisibility cloak or something."

James smirked at them, his eyes glinting. "Why not both?"

"Are you _serious_?!" Peter shouted. ("No, I am." Sirius answered. Remus threw a textbook at him.) "That is so _cool_!"

James grinned. "It was my dad's. It's in my trunk upstairs. I say the second I get out of detention, we grab it and head out."

"Why not just bring it with you?" Sirius suggested. "And we'll meet you right outside her door."

"Then, it's off to Hogsmeade!"

The rest of the day passed without event. The Marauder's first day had been cursed with, as Sirius called it 'the biggest snoozes of them all'. After History of Magic was Herbology with the Slytherins, during which Sirius and James had a blast throwing Puffapods at Severus when Professor Sprout's back was turned. After that was Potions, and James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were proud to say that through their combined efforts, the four of them only made the Forgetfulness potion explode in their faces twenty times in the entire period, and Sirius's robes only caught on fire once.

After dinner in the great hall, they ran up to get James's invisibility cloak and (after procrastinating for as long as Remus would let him) James went down to the Transfiguration wing for detention.

He got lost several times, but finally managed to make it to McGonagall's classroom, where she was writing a few spells on the board. James knocked loudly and McGonagall turned away from the board, turned back, circled one spell in particular, and then went to let him in.

"Hi Minnie." James said, striding in with an air of confidence.

McGonagall looked at him, mortified. "What did you just call me Mr. Potter?" She demanded.

"Minnie. My friend Sirius and I were looking at the staff directory during potions while we were waiting for another cauldron because we melted our old one, and we came up with nicknames for everyone. You're Minnie now. It's official."

McGonagall rolled her eyes and sighed, already predicting that tomorrow morning with 1st year Gryffindors would be an interesting and migraine-causing one indeed. "Right, well, seeing as the rogue broomstick you attempted to ride completely destroyed page 421 (among other things) in 27 of my students' textbooks, your detention I think would be best spent _rewriting_ that page on 27 pieces of parchment to be put back in." McGonagall lied. Of course, she didn't really have any intention on making James _write_ anything, but she wanted to see if he was clever enough to figure this out on his own. After all, managing a broomstick like _that_ must've taken some quick thinking and she could now clearly see that James's wand was specially made for Transfiguration. "When you're done with that, you are free to leave." She handed the mortified James a stack of 27 papers and a textbook.

James stared blankly at the papers. This would take _forever_ to do.

It took about five minutes of James being gone for Sirius to realize that he was bored out of his mind. "Remus!" He shouted, throwing a pillow at Remus, who was peacefully reading a book.

"Hm?"Remus asked, unphased and not looking up.

"Where's James?"

"He's in detention, remember?"

Sirius groaned. Then, an idea struck him.

"Want to go bail him out?"

"Not necessarily."

"But _Remus_!"

Remus closed the book and stared at Sirius for a long time, thinking it over. If he said yes, they actually had a chance of reaching Honeydukes before it closed, and that meant chocolate. "Okay, fine." Remus agreed.

They dragged Pettigrew out of an exploding snap tournament in the common room and raced down to Transfiguration to get James out of there.

"What's he doing?" Peter asked, as Sirius peered in through the window.

"Looks like she's making him write something." Sirius answered, looking positively horrified at the mere thought.

"Ew."

Remus rolled his eyes. "So what's the plan?"

Sirius shrugged. "Well, I say two of us go in there and demand that she lets James go, and in the meantime, the other one goes and gets a werewolf or a giant or something equally awful and dangerous and starts screaming horribly so Minnie has to rush out and-"

"What is it with your fascination with werewolves?" Remus snapped hotly. Sirius raised an eyebrow at him, but backed off when he locked eyes with Remus's death glare.

"Fine, then we'll just go with part 1, and then if that doesn't work, we'll improvise." Sirius impatiently exclaimed. Then, before Remus could pull him back, he turned around and opened the door. Sirius, Remus and Peter strolled in, one after the other.

The second James saw his friends, he dropped the quill and burst into a wide grin.

"Professor McGonagall, we are the James-Potter-rescue-team and we demand that you let our friend go!" Sirius declared dramatically, acting as if he was on stage. Feeling a little silly, Remus and Peter lifted up their fists and shouted in agreement.

McGonagall rolled her eyes. "That's great boys. Now get out."

" _Brilliant_ plan, Sirius." Remus muttered sardonically. Peter bent his head, pouted, and started to leave, but Sirius was not so willing to back down.

"I'm not leaving without James." Sirius stubbornly stated.

With a shake of her head, McGonagall pointed her wand at the door and it swung open for them to leave. "Mr. Potter has detention, this is the detention classroom, unless you have detention as well, I'm afraid you really must go back to the common room."

Sirius grinned broadly. _'Unless you have detention as well…_ ' The words rung in his head over and over again. He now had a plan. "Hold in there, Jamie," Sirius declared as he walked up to Professor McGonagall's desk and, smirking devilishly, took her spectacles and began to stomp around the classroom saying "Mr. Potter has detention! I love Albus Dumbledore! Mr. Potter has detention! Meow! Mr. Potter has detention!" In a stunningly accurate impersonation of McGonagall. He then took out his wand and swung it around in the air flambouyantly for a few seconds, accidentally causing the quill James was holding to explode. Catching the hint, a horrified Remus winced and waved his wand and levitated cage after cage of animals for transfiguration, causing them to start screeching and hooting and howling in the process. Peter, who hadn't learned much magic yet and wasn't brazen enough to make a move as bold as Sirius, kicked over each and every single desk in the classroom. James was roaring with laughter now, not sure whether to be touched by his friend's dedication or embarrassed by their stupidity.

McGonagall touched her fingers to her temples like she was having a migraine, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop the tiniest of smiles from spreading across her lips. As moronic as they were to willingly walk into detention, McGonagall had to admit, she was impressed with these boys' determination.

"Fine!" She declared. "Detention, for all of you! Mr. Pettigrew, fix all these desks. Mr. Lupin, calm down those water-glass-animals you seem to have thoroughly traumatized. Mr. Black, just… try not blow anything up." McGonagall said, summoning her spectacles back and starting to leave. "I have a staff meeting, but when I return, I expect the desks to be right-side-up, the animals to be peacefully sleeping, and the textbook pages to be rewritten." And with that, she almost left the classroom until, hand inches away from the handle, she turned to James and said "Oh, and Mr. Potter, I think you'll find that's a soft J." Then she was gone.

Shaking off his confusion at McGonagall's incoherent statement, James grinned and pulled his fellow Gryffindors into a Marauder hug. "You didn't have to do that, mates."He pointed out.

Sirius scoffed. "What, and let you have all the fun in here without us? I don't think so."

Remus rolled his eyes and pulled out the hug with a lopsided grin. "I have no idea how to calm these things down." He admitted. "Animals hate me." It was true, nearly every animal (magical or non) that Remus had met seemed to have been able to sniff out the fact that he wasn't truly human, and became positively terrified to the point of retaliation by that. He reckoned he was the only 11 year old to have ever been attacked by a Pygmy Puff.

Remus carefully approached the cage that McGonagall kept mice to be turned into snuff-boxes. They squeaked at him indignantly and Remus realized that it would probably make things even worse if he got close to try and calm them down.

Peter sighed and started to stack up the desks again. Sirius plopped down on James's table and flipped through his papers. "What'cha doing?"

"Minnie's making me copy down a textbook page 27 times." James complained, picking up his quill with distaste.

"Yuck." Sirius took a blank roll of parchment and stared at it. "I wonder if there's some way to turn this blank paper into a finished product." He mused.

James grinned and leaned back in his chair lazily. "Yeah…" He glanced over at the board McGonagall was writing on before she left. _"Oh, and Mr. Potter, I think you'll find that's a soft J."_ The words clouded his head as Sirius continued to complain loudly that detention was boring. James stared at the spell on the board a raised an eyebrow. _"What's the worst that can happen?"_ He thought to himself, and, aiming his wand at a blank roll of parchment, gave it a flick and muttered the spell, remembering to keep every single J written on the board soft. Instantly, the parchment turned exactly like the one from the textbook.

Grinning like a madman, James shoved the paper in Sirius's face. "This just got interesting…" Sirius mused under his breath. "Remy, Pewee, check this out." And before Remus and Peter could reprimand Sirius for the ridiculous nicknames, Sirius folded the parchment into a paper airplane and threw it at them.

"James, this is really advanced transfiguration." Peter pointed out, impressed. James winked and performed the spell again, and again, and again, pointing out that he had just performed at least 3rd year magic, until Sirius (confused as to how this kid was able to use such complicated magic without any experience and fed up with James's constant accomplishment) declared that it must be super easy and claimed he could easily do twice as many scrolls as James. Remus shook his head nervously and Peter watched on in excitement as Sirius took a piece of parchment, waved his wand and (forgetting about the soft J hint McGonagall had told them after she left) ducked under a desk as the parchment exploded into flames.

The other three laughed as Sirius cursed; and within no time, the desks were upright, the animals calmed (disgruntled, but calmed) and the textbooks rewritten. With no McGonagall to keep them in check and no other way to occupy their short attention spans, Remus, Peter, Sirius and James slid out of the door and raced down the halls of Hogwarts.

"So, I believe the deal was Hogsmeade?" James asked, hearing the clock chime eight.

Sirius grinned mischievously. "But of course. How else are we to get to Zonkos and restock?"

They snuck out the gates of Hogwarts, concealed by James's invisibility cloak and ran across the grounds, following James and Sirius's mangled, hand-me-down directions.

"I think Narcissa mentioned something about turning left at a tree."

"Which tree? There happen to be a lot of them around here."

"Er… I dunno, she didn't specify."

"My dad said you're supposed to curve around Hagrid's hut and head north."

"Where's Hagrid's hut?"

"Which way's north?"

"Bella mentioned something about going through the forbidden forest howling like a wolf. Think she was just trying to get me killed though."

"My mom said there's a black path coming out of the Herbology wing."

"I can't even see my own feet, James, how the bloody hell are we supposed to see a path?"

"You can't see your feet because they're under an invisibility cloak, Sirius."

"Ah, right. But still."

The four of them had disagreement after disagreement and bicker after bicker on how to get to Hogsmeade for what felt like hours until a huge roaring sound shut them up.

"What was that?" Peter whimpered, backing away cautiously.

Sirius grinned and said in a creepy voice, "Maybe it was a werewolf- Ow, Remus! I'm sorry, alright?"

"Maybe it was Gryffindor's gryffin or something wickedly cool like that."

Hearing another horrible whooshing sound, like something heavy and spiky being pulled through air, Remus whipped around and came face to face with a huge, swinging branch, roaring with power like a roller coaster as it ripped through the air. "Or maybe it was that!" He screamed, wrenching his friends down and narrowly avoiding the particularly violent branch.

James straightened his glasses and stared up in awe. A huge tree stood just meters away from them. It had nearly a dozen, huge, spiked branches that all seemed to be rushing towards the four boys, prepared to turn him into a Potter pancake.

Sirius let out an ear-splitting, feminine scream and immediately, four shocked, scratched and shrieking kids scrambled as far away from the tree's squash zone as was possible to go.

"What- what _was_ that thing?!" Sirius gasped as they zoomed back inside the castle.

James shook his head breathlessly, clutching his side. Everyone was at loss for breath, words and even jokes, all they could do was sprint up to the Gryffindor tower like the tree was still right on their heels.

Staggering into their dormitory, it was a full five minutes of laying there in petrified silence before anyone had the nerve to open their mouth.

"That… happened." Sirius exclaimed.

"Indeed it did." James agreed, awe-struck.

"That was the Whomping Willow." Remus pointed out informatively, not looking up from the floor. "It hits back."

"I never thought I'd be one to pick favorites, but that thing is now officially my least favorite tree." Sirius observed quietly. Peter giggled and James grinned nervously.

"First Hogsmeade trip= fail. But that's okay." He assured. "This is the rags part of our rags to riches story, mates. Tomorrow night, we'll know not to run into that… thing. We'll find our way around this place illegally in no time." James flashed them all a smirk.

Remus groaned and turned over in his bed. He glanced up at the calendar Sirius had given him. 21 days. He had 21 days left until another horrible transformation. Little did he know however, that those 21 days would soon turn out to be the most interesting, most fun, most hilarious, and overall best 21 days he'd had in a long time.


	4. Chapter 4- The First Full Moon

The Marauders Book 1 Chapter 4- The First Full Moon

The Marauders' next three weeks at Hogwarts flew by. 2nd day classes had proved to be much more interesting, where they had double Transfiguration in the morning, Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts in the afternoon, and Astronomy at night.

James's spell that first night in detention seemed to have seared his confidence in Transfiguration. He had been the first one to turn a match into a needle, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the class trying to put out the fire Sirius had caused. Remus had successfully managed to turn his match into a needle in the last five minutes of class and Peter hadn't done anything at all. An overenthusiastic Sirius had (of course) lit his on fire, which was okay when it was a match, but after he managed to transfigure it into a needle, caused him to have a throbbing burn on his left hand for the rest of the day.

Charms had gone beautifully. 1st year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were learning to levitate objects, which had first been accomplished by Lily Evans, the girl with dark red hair and bright green eyes that James had fallen for on their first day. In a desperate attempt to impress her, James stopped trying to levitate the feather and instead tried to levitate Sirius. This however, did not have the desired result, as James overestimated his own skill and only succeeded in levitating Sirius's right shoe and making it fly around the class. Professor Flitwick fell over with laughter, congratulating James on his profound ability to perform the spell and break the rules at the same time, James grinned cheekily at the rest of the class, but Lily just rolled her eyes and Sirius smacked him with the shoe once he had managed to catch it.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was immediately the most interesting class to everyone except James (who claimed it was flying) and Snape (who claimed it was potions). Their very first lesson was on counter jinxes and disarming opponents, which Sirius and James had a blast practicing on Snape from across the room, making not only his wand but also his entire body fly across the room, and the class then went on to talk about and practice some simple defensive charms.

Astronomy didn't really get interesting until Sirius broke a telescope, and the very last thing Remus wanted to do was stare at the moon when he didn't have to and watch his nightmare slowly draw closer, so the Marauders quickly added this to their 'skip if we need to' class list, along with History of Magic and Potions.

Herbology's puffapods had grown even bigger, which made it even more fun to throw them around at other people when the teacher's back was turned. History of Magic had officially become a Marauders meeting time. Professor Binns didn't even seem to notice that the four boys sitting in the back of their classroom spent all their time passing notes back and forth instead of paying attention to his horrifically boring lectures. So long as James scribbled the occasional something down, Peter gave an occasional nod, Remus asked an occasional question, and Sirius managed to hold in his laughter, no one suspected a thing.

Potions on the other hand, had been downright awful. Remus, Peter, Sirius and James all shared one table, and, in turn, one set of ingredients, which Sirius liked to spend his free time mutilating. Remus was clearly the only one who paid attention in that class, but he was incurably awful at it, which left the rest of table in trouble, as everyone else seemed to be too busy caught up in their own little world to notice that Remus had just melted their third cauldron.

"Why are they _still_ talking?" James demanded, glaring over at Lily Evans and Severus Snape who were (to James's upmost horror) partners in potions. "I mean, hasn't she noticed that he's a slimy git already? She's got to have noticed that by now."

"She's probably just mad at you 'cause you threw a Puffapod at her grease-faced boyfriend the other day." Sirius pointed out with a shrug, crushing seventeen beetles with his blade despite the fact that they were supposed to _slice_ them.

"That idiot is _not_ her boyfriend." James pointed out angrily, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the class complaining loudly about why Lily would bother sitting next to a moron like Severus when she could sit next to a fabulous beast like him, while Sirius shrugged and continued to misuse ingredients, Peter listened intently, accidentally dribbling cake crumbs into their potion, and Remus tried to figure out what on earth a bezoar was and whether they were supposed to add it before or after the leechee nuts (which Sirius had burned to crisp in the first five minutes of class).

Flying classes were going great. James didn't make the team this year ("first of all, first years aren't allowed to have their own brooms, let alone be on the house team. Second of all, you nearly _killed_ yourself last class." "Yeah, but I didn't." "Tryouts are first week on your second year, Potter. I wish you luck then.") but after one night of sobbing relentlessly about it, he realized he was being stupid and proceeded to spend the rest of his flying lessons mastering riding every single broom in the school and trying to teach his friends to ride so they could try out with him. Once not on a hexed broom, Sirius wasn't too bad himself, at the end of their first week, he had even managed to fly a few loops, although all races between him and James resulted in Sirius's utter and total defeat. Peter and Remus on the other hand were, in Madam Hooch's own words, "impossibly uncoordinated" and had begun to make a habit of just watching James soar through the skies shouting with glee while eating chocolate on the grounds with a screaming Sirius.

After just a few days of having them in her class, McGonagall quickly learned just how much trouble the Marauders could be. James Potter, though naturally amazing at the subject and beyond talented in everything he set his mind to, got easily distracted and seemed to be too clever for his own good, always finishing before everyone else and instead of getting a head start on his homework (which he made an effort to never turn in), resorting to trying to transform everyone's quills into tiny broomsticks, something that always went wrong. Sirius Black, though having a knack for even the most complicated of magic, had a bit of tendency to accidentally set stuff on fire, most of the time due to his refusal to listen to instructions carefully. Remus Lupin, though greatly studious and diligent, had a witty, prankish mind to him, and it was only three days into class when McGonagall realized he had turned _her_ water goblet into a toucan, right when she was about to drink out of it. Peter Pettigrew, though sweet and excitable, relied far too much on James and Sirius, both of whom got bored after the first time doing something and typically decided to dangerously experiment with Peter's whiskered snuff-box, wooden needle, and tailed water goblet. They were all incredibly mischievous, almost never did their homework (with the exception of Remus), got detention every other day, and McGonagall couldn't help but love them to death for it all.

On their fourth night, the four of them succeeded in finding a route to Hogsmeade, and had begun to make a habit of meeting every night after detention to check out Honeydukes and Zonkos (the Three Broomsticks, unfortunately, was too risky if they were caught, so they kept to the crowded shops instead and decided to wait on butterbeer for their third year).

Three weeks into their Hogwarts careers and the four Marauders were already more like brothers than friends. James and Sirius in particular had become inseperable, and so, naturally, when James first saw the bright red envelope, he thought it was his own.

It was a Saturday, and it had started out so normal. The Marauders were feasting on a breakfast of bacon, sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, bacon, a huge platter of chocolate donuts, and even more bacon. The four of them had plans to stroll around by the lake and see if they could provoke the giant squid into dragging one of them underneath again. No one except Remus really had any intention on doing the mountains of Charms homework Flitwick had assigned to them. They had just gotten to discussing the topic of James's most recent failed attempt to win over the heart of Lily Evans (a huge bouquet of flowers that grew wings and fluttered around her hair like sweet-smelling mosquitoes for the rest of the day until she finally shredded the last one and threw it into the fire), when a huge, majestic snowy owl soared in and dropped what looked like a simple, innocent, red envelope on James's untidy-haired head.

The owl clamped its jaws on the last piece of bacon and soared off, but James had hardly even noticed that his favorite breakfast food had just been stolen. He stared at the letter in disbelief. It was… a _Howler._

James felt like screaming. He had never gotten a howler before. He had always been the perfect, mischievous, rule-breaking son and he knew his parents loved him more than life itself. He glanced around nervously, considering making a run for it, and racked his mind trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Sure, he had gotten in trouble a lot, but not enough for his parents to send him _this_. His parents had told him many times that they didn't believe in Howlers, and knew that when it came to children the best way to raise them was love and affection and sweets and encouragement and maximum positive reinforcement. Maybe another relative sent it to him, but James knew that was crazy. His father's side had always encouraged the pranking, and he hadn't heard from his mother's side in _years_. They were Blacks, he was told, like Sirius, and although they approved of her marriage to Charlus Potter, another pureblood, they did not exactly see eye to eye with his mother on _other_ topics, so she tried to veer as far away from them as possible and considered herself as far more of a Potter than a Black. As far as he knew, his mother's family didn't know he existed, and it couldn't be Blinky, the house-elf, because he knew his parent's would never allow for any Howler to leave their house. Besides, Blinky and James were pretty good friends within the standards of house-elf and master. He had certainly never been rude to the little guy before, and Blinky was very loyal to his parents, he would never go against their orders to send James a Howler.

Staring at the envelope in shock and hearing his friend's conversation glaze over him like he was in a trance, James decided it would be best if he just got it over with and opened it. With trembling fingers, James tore a little hole in the envelope and the thing automatically exploded.

" _SIRIUS ORION BLACK!_ " It screamed. James raised an eyebrow at Sirius, who was torn away from his comment that maybe James would've had more luck if the flowers didn't follow Lily into the shower, and stared at the Howler in horror.

"HOW DARE YOU SHAME OUR FAMILY IN THIS WAY! SORTED INTO GRYFFINDOR! BEFRIENDING MUDBLOODS AND HALF-BREEDS NO DOUBT! PARADING AROUND PUTTING ALL OF US TO SHAME! I AM ABSOLUTELY SICKENED TO BE YOUR MOTHER! THE ONLY REASON YOU DIDN'T GET THIS ON THE FIRST MORNING OF SCHOOL IS THAT WE WERE IN IRELAND VISITING YOUR _REAL BLACK_ COUSIN ON HIS QUEST FOR ROGUE PORTKEYS, THE SECOND WE GOT HOME AND RECEIVED BELLATRIX'S OWL I COULD'VE DIED OF HORROR! HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A MEMBER OF OUR FAMILY?! YOU DISGRACEFUL LITTLE-" Remus reached out in terror to cover Peter's ears. "YOUR FATHER AND I HAVE NEVER FELT MORE DISAPPOINTED! THINK OF THE EXAMPLE YOU'RE SETTING FOR REGULUS! HE'LL BE OFF TO SCHOOL NEXT YEAR AND YOUR BEHAVIOR SETS EVERYONE WHO OBSERVES YOU UP FOR FAILURE! YOU'RE LUCKY YOUR NAME HASN'T ALREADY BEEN BURNED OFF THE TAPESTRY, AND I CAN ASSURE YOU, YOUR FATHER AND I HAVE COME VERY CLOSE TO DOING SUCH THING ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS! FIRST ANDROMEDA FALLS FOR A MUDBLOOD AND NOW YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO GET SORTED INTO THE RIGHT HOUSE?! THIS IS UNBEARABLE! YOUR SIN IS UNFORGIVABLE! YOU JUST WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR! YOUR FATHER AND I HAVE NOT OFFICIALLY DECIDED ON YOUR PUNISHMENT BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT YOU WILL WISH YOU'VE NEVER BEEN BORN! YOU DISGUST THE REST OF THIS FAMILY! I HOPE YOUR FIRST YEAR AT HOGWARTS GETS YOU KILLED, YOU UNGRATEFUL, HORRIFIC, REBELLIOUS…"

This went on for a while, until finally, Mrs. Black seemed to run out of insults and the letter tore itself up into a millions tiny pieces that threw themselves at Sirius's face.

An immensely awkward silence pierced through the Great Hall. For a long time, the only sound to be heard was loud snickering from the Slytherin table, where Sirius's many cousins were snorting into their pudding at the Howler.

James, Remus and Peter stared in shock at a frozen Sirius. They all had their fair share of familial issues, sure. James's grandmother had died a few years ago and that left him devastated for several months, Remus's father was major in anti-werewolf decrees before his son had been bitten and had struggled severely with the fact that his son was part of a race he despised so much, Peter's parents had thought for the longest time that he was a squib, but none of them had ever seen anything like that. They had heard Sirius talk apathetically about his parents hating him, but had always assumed it was just talk. Hearing this Howler, and realizing just how much Sirius's parents did hate him, none of them really knew what to say.

James's mouth opened, closed, then opened again, like he was trying to find words that simply wouldn't come, so he just decided to but a cautious hand on Sirius's shoulder. Before any of them could brainstorm a way to comfort Sirius for what he had just heard, the handsome, grey-eyed boy had the most bizarre reaction any of them could imagine. He took the paper shreds, flung them over his shoulder and then just laughed.

Laugh. That was all Sirius should bring him to do. He knew he wasn't understanding the severity of this situation at all. He knew that if his parents hadn't already hated him before he went to Hogwarts, they certainly did now. Above all, he knew that this Christmas would be the worst Christmas he had ever experienced in his life, but he was in so much shock all that all Sirius managed to do was laugh.

That was the weird thing about Sirius, he didn't believe in tears. He believed in frustration, sure, and anger, and wrath, and terrifying, maniacal laughter, but he had been raised believing that tears were a sign of much-hated weakness.

"Who cares about them?" Sirius gasped through bursts of laughter, while his friends just stared on in shock. "Think I'll just sign up to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas anyway. That'll give them enough time to cool off."

Realizing that the biggest comfort Sirius could have right now was everything returning to normal, as he was pulling off an 'I don't care' stunt, James laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Brilliant. We need to figure out how to get to pine trees to throw needles into the Slytherin's pudding anyway. My parents said they wanted me home, but I don't think they'll mind if we've found a higher calling." He winked.

Remus snorted, clearly not thinking that teaching Christmas trees Gryffindor bias was a 'higher calling'. He was starting to look extremely pale, and the headaches hit him more and more now. At least twice a day this past week, one of his friends asked him if he was feeling sick, and offered to take him to the hospital wing (usually as a way to get out of History of Magic or Potions), but Remus had just shrugged it off as 'stayed up late studying'. He did feel sick though. Remus couldn't bring himself to eat breakfast and, as a result, felt like his stomach was eating itself. This would be the first time he transformed into a werewolf at Hogwarts, and although he had had countless nervous meetings with Dumbledore who walked him through every step of the plan and assured him everything would be fine, Remus felt like he was dying of anxiety.

After leaving the lake, disappointed that the giant squid had refused to drag anyone under ("you assume I am some sort of scoundrel"), the Marauders decided that it would probably be in their best interest to go find a hideout and plan their Halloween disturbance.

The four discovered that they had a common love for pranking on the first train ride to Hogwarts, but had been too busy with schoolwork, detention, sneaking off to Hogsmeade, jinxing Severus, and trying to get Lily to go out with James to pull off what Sirius liked to call 'a big one' yet, and all four had reached the mutual decision that the perfect time for 'a big one' would be this Halloween.

Laying lazily under an oak tree, James ruffled up his hair and cleared his throat. "Alright. So, Halloween. What do you guys think of when you hear Halloween?"

"Pumpkins."

"Candy corn!"

"Flying demonic creatures that attack you in your sleep."

James shook his head, laughing. "Remus, good one, I'm thinking we can do something with jack-o-lanterns or something, but you're far too broad. Peter, maybe, we could definitely jinx it or something. And flying demonic creatures that suck out your soul in your sleep?! Are you serious?!"

"Naturally." Sirius answered with a wink.

James groaned and Remus picked up a pile of dead leaves and flung them at Sirius's face, which drained far more energy than it would've if that night wasn't a full moon. "What if we have a bunch of jack-o-lanterns, like pumpkin things, and they fly around the school all day and night-"

"Shooting candy corn at people!"

"Yes!" James shouted, standing up in a 'EUREKA' type fashion. "Shooting hexed candy corn at people, so that when it hits them it turns their hair some random neon color!"

Sirius snickered. "Snivellous with bright pink hair…"

"So these flying jack-o-lanterns zoom around the school, dying people's hair and messing with everything and-"

"And we can set up an ordering station, so that if people want anyone specific that they don't like to end up with random hair, we can sell them a jack-o-lantern-"

"We'll make trillions of galleons doing that!"

"But we can't sell to Slytherins." Sirius pointed out, and everyone murmured in unanimous agreement.

James nodded. This was a brilliant plan. "We should sneak out into the garden tonight to get some pumpkins. Hagrid has billions, he says he wanted to have a few hundred, but they spread across his whole garden and started devouring all the other plants. He'll be happy to get rid of a few of the runty ones if you ask me. We'll take them back to Gryffindor tower tonight and start the carving tomorrow!"

Remus's heart sank horribly. "Tonight?" He stammered.

Everyone looked at him and nodded. James raised a caring eyebrow at Remus's impossibly pale face. "You okay, Remus?"

Remus wanted to shake his head but found himself nodding instead. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just-" He froze. _"Think of an excuse. NOW!_ "His mind screamed at him. "It's just that my mother's ill, I just got the letter today." He pulled one of the pre-prepared notes from inside his robes.

James, Sirius and Peter were frozen for a minute and then pulled him into a hug. There were lots of "why didn't you tell us, mate?"s and "I hope she gets better!"s and "let us know if you need us to sneak you out to go visit her, especially in potions or something…"s, that made Remus feel incredibly guilty about lying to them.

"It's not that serious." He muttered quietly, his pale, scarred face turning the same shade as a tomato. "I just need to visit her tonight is all."

"Course, mate." James said, grabbing Remus's shoulder and shaking it in a way that Remus assumed was supposed to be affectionate, but instead, James's athleticism made him feel like he was in a blender. "We'll get the pumpkins tomorrow night then, if you're back. They need a while to ripen up anyway."

Remus nodded thankfully. He wasn't worried about the three of them going without him (although they had a much less chance of getting detention with him stopping them from doing anything exceptionally stupid), but Remus shuddered to think of what would happen if James, Sirius, and Peter were out on the grounds when he transformed.

The rest of the day passed by as a blur, for everyone: Sirius because the Howler left him in a bit of numb mood, Peter because he had an essay due that Monday that he hadn't even started, Remus because he was dreading that night, and James because he was simply having the time of his life, and trying to drag his friends into having it with him.

They had decided to dedicate the rest of the day to prowling around the castle looking for the kitchens. One could not simply pull off a Halloween prank involving hexed candy-corn without actually having the candy-corn to hex in the first place. Finally, a few minutes before dinner, the Marauders managed to find a secret entrance to the kitchens, behind a picture that Sirius, James, Peter and Remus had to tap every single fruit with their wands to realize that it was a pear.

The four of them strode in, Remus stumbling a bit (he only had a few hours before the transformation) and froze with shock when they saw hundreds of wide eyes looking back at them. Nearly a thousand house-elves filled the kitchen, all staring at the four people who had just walked in like they had never seen a human being before.

"Um, hi." James said finally, after what must've been the world's largest staring contest, with the Marauders being helplessly outnumbered. "I'm James Potter."

"Sirius Black."

"Remus Lupin."

"Peter Pettigrew."

"And we- uh, we were wondering if you had any candy corn?"

Immediately, the kitchen exploded with hundreds of squeaky 'yes sirs' and 'right over here' and 'can I get you a hot chocolate?' James laughed and winked at his friends as several grinning house elves pulled a _huge_ bag of candy corn seemingly out of nowhere.

"Alright!" Sirius shouted, boiling with excitement.

"That thing is bigger than our dorm…" Said Peter, staring at the giant bag in shock.

"Thank you." Remus stammered, smiling weakly at the hundreds of house-elves.

"You're welcome sirs!"

And so, grins on their faces, steaming mugs of hot chocolate in their hands, and an impossibly large bag of candy corn levitated with Sirius's wand behind them, the four boys left the kitchen.

"We seriously had better remember that entrance." James said, severely impressed with the creaminess of his hot chocolate and the sheer quantity of candy corn that they carried behind them. "I'm serious guys. That thing is a gold mine." They turned a corner, James and Sirius a few feet ahead of the waddling Peter and the exhausted Remus.

" _You're_ Sirius? I thought I was Sirius. Or am I James?" Sirius made hand circles around his eyes, pantomiming glasses. "I'm James Potter, self-proclaimed future quidditch captain and self-proclaimed future husband of Lily Evans. I doodle snitches and 'LE' all over my papers and speak in a lower octave when I'm talking to her and mess up my hair around her and say her name when I'm sleeping and-"

"Black, Potter, what are you two doing?"

Sirius whipped around and dropped the act and James stopped laughing immediately. "Hey, Evans." He exclaimed, straightening his glasses, dropping his voice an octave and messing with his hair, making it even more untidy than it already was. Sirius smirked at him if to say 'I told you so.'

Lily rolled her eyes and shook her head in exasperation. "What are you-"

"So, there's a big Halloween party in the Gryffindor common room coming up, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?" James asked, biting his lower lip and again ruffling the hair, so it now achieved 'I just got out of a crazy Quidditch match where a Bludger hit me in the back of the head 8000 times' messiness level.

"No."

"But-"

Lily rolled her eyes as James tousled up his hair again. _"He looks like a dork doing that."_ She thought to herself. "Because I'm not going with you. I'd rather go with the giant squid to a dingy, middle-of-nowhere deathday party than with you anywhere. End of story."

"But maybe if-" James started, taking her hand romantically.

"No, Potter!" Lily slapped his hand off of hers and stormed off down the hallway.

"Evans! Hey, Evans! Hey, Evans, wait!"James yelled, starting to run after her, but she had already disappeared. James sighed heavily and looked back at his friends, who were sniggering at his once-again failed attempt to win the love of his life. "I don't get it." He said sadly.

"It's fine, James." Sirius said, placing an arm around James's shoulder and pulling him in so they walked up to the Gryffindor common room with their arms wrapped around each other. "Maybe going with the giant squid to a dingy, middle-of-nowhere deathday party is fun to her, and it was a really hard choice, but eventually she decided to go with the squid because the deathday party was for someone she knew or something." The four of them paused, contemplating the likelihood of Sirius's scenario. "Or maybe she just doesn't like you."

"Why does she always turn me down?" He complained, then, James got an idea. "Maybe if I ask her out tomorrow, she'll say yes! Maybe I'm not being persistent enough!" He shouted, like it was the only and most obvious explanation.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter shared a groan.

Back up in their dormitory, after an eventful night in the common room, (They'd had an exploding snap tournament, and Peter had beaten them all. Sirius, who had stubbornness issues, refused to believe this and challenged Peter to rematch after rematch while James sent an annoyed Lily parchment-swans from across the room and Remus tried to piece together his Charms essay, which now had a whopping total of two words) The Marauders managed to store their stolen candy corn under Peter's bed and then proceeded to try and figure out how to make them turn people's hair neon.

Remus checked his watch. 6:00. It wasn't nearly time, he still had a few hours, but the last thing Remus wanted was something going wrong tonight. "I have to go." He said, weakly lifting himself up from the bed and staggering towards the door.

Peter, James, and Sirius, all of whom had been laying on Remus's bed brainstorming spells with him to hex the candy corn, all raised eyebrows at him.

"My mum, remember?" Remus snapped.

"Ah!"

"Right!"

"Hope she gets better, mate!"

"We should _Siriusly_ make her a get-well card."

Remus nodded bitterly and slid out the door, closing it and cutting off Sirius's yelp as James most likely threw another pillow at him.

He crept out of the Gryffindor common room, slid down several staircases to the infirmary. Remus knocked quietly, his heart overflowing with nervousness.

A woman with fluffy grey hair and warm blue eyes opened the door with a flick of her wand. "Yes, who is it? You're not one of those pestering students coming to visit their friends outside of visiting hours, are you? My patients need rest!" The matron had a kind but strict look to her, as if she was the type of witch to mend someone with upmost gentleness and sweetness, but if someone misbehaved in her hospital wing, there would be no chocolate about it.

Remus stood in the doorframe, his lower lip trembling. "Er- no- I-" He stammered. "I'm Remus Lupin? Professor Dumbledore told me-"

"Ah, yes." A soft, sympathetic smile spread across the matron's face. "I'm Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse." She checked her watch with a raised eyebrow. "You're here a little early, aren't you?"

Remus shrugged, not really wanting to talk at this exact moment. Madam Pomfrey understood and let him sit down on a bed with a huge slab of chocolate and a warm glass of apple cider. Remus looked around the rest of the hospital wing curiously. He had been to St. Mungo's a lot, but had always been given his own individual room there, it was interesting to see the bizarre ailments that befell people in the wizarding world.

A 7th year Slytherin girl from a few beds down caught his eye and smiled kindly. She had long, dark brown hair and glistening grey-blue eyes, she looked like she would've been pretty if her face wasn't completely covered in bursting red boils. "I don't normally look like this, promise. I had a potions accident." She explained. "I'm going to miss a lot of things next year, but can't say that class is one of them. Anti-boil potion gone wrong, and when my cauldron exploded, the whole thing splattered all over my face. Madam Pomfrey says I have to spend the night." She made a face and Remus offered a weak smile, glad to have someone to get his mind off of what was to happen tonight. "No doubt everyone'll know what happened by the time I get back. What about you? What are you in here for?"

Remus looked down immediately and shrugged, murmuring something about headaches and nightmares and grindylows in a quiet voice. The girl raised an eyebrow, but didn't try and ask him about what was going on again. Instead, she just changed the subject.

"You're in Gryffindor aren't you?" Remus nodded. "A first year?" He nodded again. The girl beamed, causing a boil on the right side of her nose to explode. "My cousin is too. Maybe you know him? Sirius Black?" Remus nodded and stifled a laugh. He knew Sirius all too well… "I'm Andromeda, by the way, probably the one cousin he hasn't been attacked by. And you?"

"I haven't been attacked by any of my cousins." Remus pointed out flatly, confused by her question. "I only have one anyway, and he's two."

Andromeda laughed. "No, I mean your name."

"Oh. Remus Lupin."

Andromeda laughed again, despite the fact that nothing Remus said was funny. "Are you serious?"

Remus had to pinch himself to stop himself from saying "no, I'm Remus", clearly he had been spending too much time around Sirius… "Yes?"

"That's funny, because your name literally means wer-"

"Lupin?" Remus looked up to see Madam Pomfrey looked expectantly at him. She was wearing a black cape on top of her normal nurse's clothes and held one out for Remus as well. "You have a bit more than a half an hour. Do you want to leave now?"

"Yes." Remus said quickly, shoving the rest of the chocolate in his mouth and swishing it down with the scalding cider.

At Andromeda's raised eyebrow, Madam Pomfrey shook her head primly and scolded her, "No, Miss. Black, I must insist that you do not talk when you're trying to wait for those to heal."

"I can't _not_ talk, it's in my nature." Andromeda protested. Remus noticed that in an indirect way, she sounded a lot like Sirius. "And it's Tonks. Mrs. Tonks. We're getting married over Christmas."

"Congratulations." Madam Pomfrey said, as if it was her fifth time telling the girl that. Madam Pomfrey slid the cape over Remus, which felt good, because he just now noticed that he was having a serious shivering problem. "Now _silencio._ " Madam Pomfrey waved her wand calmly and Andromeda stopped talking, gave a silent sigh, and turned her back to them.

"See this one in here every other day, poor child." Madam Pomfrey explained, guiding Remus through the halls with a soft hand on his shoulder. "She's engaged to a muggle-born, and comes from a family that's not too keen on that sort of stuff. Her relatives quite frankly have it out for her."

Remus nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The sun hadn't quite set when they walked outside, but the sky was certainly growing pink. Madam Pomfrey led him over to the Whomping Willow, all the while keeping a steady yet gentle hand on his shoulder. Using her wand, Madam Pomfrey directed a long stick to a little knob on the tree's trunk. It's branches shuddered and ceased to move.

She led him through a hole in the roots and a deep passage that followed. "This leads you straight to a house on a hill in Hogsmeade." She explained. "I assume Dumbledore's already given you a tour and an explanation of what'll happen and-"

"Yes." Remus said curtly. They walked into a two story house. The doors and windows had been thoroughly boarded up. It looked like a prison, but Remus would much rather this than running around free all night, not knowing who he could scratch or bite. It was safer in here, where the only possible exit was a small corridor back to Whomping Willow. "This locks, right?" Remus asked, his eyes darting over to the door they had just come out of.

Madam Pomfrey nodded, and then she looked rather uncomfortable. Remus asked her what was wrong. "You are aware, I'm sure, that it is the natural tendency of a werewolf to want to bite and scratch any living being it comes into contact to?" Remus nodded cautiously. "But, in here, there's nothing for you _to_ bite and scratch, so you might find, when you wake up, that-"

"I know." Remus said shortly. He was starting to get anxious and annoyed. Did Madam Pomfrey really think this was his first time transform? Did she think his parents had just allowed him free reign all those years? Did she think it bothered him that he didn't have people to bite and kill? Or what if she wasn't trying to help him? What if she was locking him in here so it would be easier for angry villagers with pitchforks to come and kill him? What if she had James, Sirius, and Peter in the other room, so that they would see… what would they think when they saw him? What if- _Stop_. Remus told himself. He was overreacting, his mind was inventing plots that weren't really there. He stared into Madam Pomfrey's warm blue eyes and knew that the only reason she was here was that she wanted to help. "I'll be fine. Really." Remus said with a forced smile.

Madam Pomfrey nodded nervously and started to walk backwards towards the corridor. "I'll be here at sunrise to take you back to the hospital wing." She looked as though she wanted to hug him then, thought better of it, gave his shoulder and comforting squeeze instead and left, closing the door and locking it with magic behind her.

Remus sat down in a chair and sighed. The sun had set by now and, turning to look out the window with terror striking his heart, the moon was out.

Remus's eyes fluttered open. He was in pain. He was in pain. He was in so much pain. He tried to look into his mind and remember what had happened last night, but the only thing he seemed capable of thinking was a dull, strained _"Ow…"_

Sunlight streamed in through the cracks of a boarded-up window and Remus struggled to sit up. Remus tried to think positive. It was Sunday. It would be a whole month before he had to go through this again. He and the rest of the Marauders were going to get pumpkins today for the jack-o-lantern prank, and- it was no use. He fell back onto the ground again in pain.

He felt as though he had just been impaled with a rusty, dull blade on 17 different spots on his body. Remus didn't even _want_ to look at the state of his clothes. He knew he should've taken them off before he transformed but he just couldn't bring himself to spend his last human moments as a naked human.

Remus managed to crack open his eyes; even his _eyelids_ hurt. He looked around, a sinking feeling beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. The once prim little two story house that he had been escorted to had been completely destroyed. The small, square table in the little kitchen had been completely mutilated, all four chairs had their legs torn, and he somehow managed to shred a whole wall of its wallpaper.

He carefully, tenderly felt his face, which hurt the most. Five huge scars (one for each claw he presumed) scratched across his face, the worst one cutting nearly an inch deep and carving through the cartilage in his nose.

Remus heard a creak in the corridor to his left. "Mr. Lupin?"

Although she said it as barely a whisper, Madam Pomfrey's voice rang in Remus's ears painfully and he had to cup them gingerly to get it to stop. Remus felt a hand help him sit up, and clutched his abdomen painfully. "Here. Try this. It should help."

Weakly, Remus felt a bite of chocolate touch his lips and mustered up enough strength to chew and swallow. It hurt to get the chocolate into his body, but once it was inside he felt warmth begin to glide across his fingers and toes. "I- thank you." He said weakly, his eyes groggy and his voice croaky.

"Do you want a stretcher to get back to the hospital wing?"

Remus shook his head and tried to stand up. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. Just as Remus managed to shakily get to his feet, he collapsed again to the ground. Before he could hit the hard wood floor however, Madam Pomfrey summoned a stretcher and Remus blacked out.

He reopened his eyes in the hospital wing. He was lying on a bed, now shielded with a screen as though any external stimuli might make him collapse again. Remus slowly put his hands up to rub his eyes, and realized with a flash of pain that they had been broken and bandaged, and that the scars seemed to cover every visible inch of his body.

Remus groaned, which probably wasn't the best idea, as it send a searing pain across his chest. He would have one heck of a time trying to explain this to James, Sirius, and Peter when he saw them tonight.


	5. Chapter 5- Halloween

The Marauders Book 1 Chapter 5- The Woes and Worries of a Warlock's Hair

"BOO!"

Remus Lupin screamed and flung himself onto the tall, shadowy masked figure that had just jumped out at him as he turned the corner. It was five o'clock in the morning on Halloween and, after a whole night of laughing, talking, jinxing candy corn and preparing jack-o-lanterns, with only about an hour's worth of sleep, Remus had woken up and tried to sneak to the bathroom to shower, carefully creeping over his friends' limbs, hair, and, in James' case, glasses. He hadn't dared taken so much as his tie off in front of his friends, knowing that the scars covering his whole body would attract nothing but questions, as they always had. This was quite different from everyone else in the dormitory, as, just a few days back, James and Sirius had had a raging 'who has the better six pack' competition.

Heart beating a million beats a second, Remus tore at his attacker's face, unable to control the fear that had pierced him. He had been jumpy all week, with the stress of his classes, his monthly cycles, and the fact that hexed candy corns and floating jack-o-lanterns had consumed every second of his spare time.

"Ouch! Ger'off me!" Sirius Black shouted, taking off his mask, terrified. All he had tried to do was pull a Halloween joke on Remus. He'd never expected he'd get lunged at for it. "It's me, Remy, it's _Sirius_."

Remus lowered his fist and glowered at Sirius. "What was that for?!" He demanded.

Sirius just laughed maniacally. "You excited for today?"

As angry as he was with Sirius for dressing up and scaring him, Remus couldn't help but grin. "Absolutely." He said. "Now get back to sleep." Then, Remus slipped into the bathroom and slid the door shut behind him.

Sirius however, had no intention of going back to sleep just yet. He had eaten extra sugar last night for dessert to prepare himself for the all-nighter of prank preparations, and now, with Remus preoccupied and James and Peter asleep, had no way to burn all that extra energy.

Sirius sat down next to a smallish jack-o-lantern he had decided to name 'Limeo', because he was the smallest of the pumpkins, the size of a lime, and, in Sirius's opinion, everything sounded cooler with an –o at the end. "Hey, Limeo."

The jack-o-lantern fluttered around excitedly, like he now recognized that that was his name. Limeo had half-moon eyes and a wide semicircle smile carved into his smallish face. He was the only one of jack-o-lanterns yet to be given a job. Ever since they carved them weeks ago, the Marauders had set up little stands outside of common rooms, classrooms, and the gates of Hogsmeade, and nearly everyone had placed an order for their significant enemy to receive a special present over the course of Halloween. They had 300 jack-o-lanterns ready to take flight tomorrow morning, and over 5000 pieces of hexed candy corn to be delivered. Of course, being the brilliant procrastinators that they knew they were, the Marauders had waited until the last night to actually figure out what jack-o-lantern would be carrying what candy-corns and where.

Peter had been in charge of finding the perfect pumpkins, Sirius in charge of carving them, James in charge of transforming them into owl-brained type things, and Remus in charge of making them all able to fly. The four of them had worked together to hex the candy corn, which lay scattered across the floor beside the Marauders.

James snored and rolled over in his sleep, dreaming about how explosive tomorrow was going to be, when Sirius caught sight of what he had clutched in his hand. It was a spare piece of candy corn. One, single, unused piece of candy corn. How could they have missed it? Sirius almost felt bad for the thing, to be left out on the Halloween prank. Limeo fluttered around Sirius, looking excitedly at the piece of corn, desperate for a job. He poked James in the eye a few times, but he didn't wake up. Sirius stared at the candy corn with interest. Then at James, whose untidy black hair continued to stick up in every direction known to man. Then back at the candy corn. He grinned.

The next day, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was in a state of constant panic, pranking, and laugh, after laugh, after laugh.

The Marauders decided to unleash their jack-o-lanterns-of-doom once every hour, starting with breakfast at the great hall and ending with a grand finale at the Halloween feast.

At breakfast, Remus, Peter, Sirius and James had to exercise some serious self control to not shout with excitement, look smug with themselves, or snicker into their sausages as a huge flock of jack-o-lanterns came in, fluttering through the windows, zooming through the doors, and even flying down through the ceiling.

The other students (even those who had purchased a deranged jack-o-lantern) looked up in awe and shock. The teachers looked bewildered. Professor Dumbledore looked amused, his blue eyes twinkling down at the Marauders, who tried to hide behind a platter of biscuits.

The jack-o-lanterns were 5 feet in diameter, and, without any warning, started shooting out hexed candy corn to nearly everyone in the school. People hooted and laughed and jeered at their friends. Within seconds, the whole Slytherin table had been thoroughly doused. James snorted with laughter when at least 20 candy corns zoomed towards Severus, dousing him with dye so that when he finally recovered, his hair was a bright, neon pink. Sirius laughed out loud as several of his cousins were sporting colors of red and gold, looking around at each other in disgust. Even Remus, who had been the one cautioning his friends not to go too far with this, couldn't help but grin as the Head Boy and Head Girl started shrieking with disbelief as they looked at their newly-dyed, bright-blue locks.

The rest of the day was just as excitable.

The Marauders had Transfiguration with the Slytherins and Herbology with the Hufflepuffs in the morning, Potions (with Slytherins) and History of Magic (with Ravenclaws) in the afternoon, and flying lessons that day after classes finished. All day, the deranged jack-o-lanterns kept zooming into class, causing quite a disruption and resulting in the extreme joy of students, and the extreme frustration of teachers.

"Now, the formula to turn a porcupine into an ink bottle is- _Really now!_ " Professor McGonagall exclaimed in exasperation as yet another pumpkin flew in and pelted two people with the candy corn, turning Severus Snape's hair from salmon pink to a bright fuschia and Marlene McKinnon's a deep maroon. Marlene grinned and flashed a wink to the back of the class where Sirius sat, but Severus did not find it remotely amusing. Neither, for that matter, did Professor McGonagall.

"Messrs Lupin, Pettigrew, Black, and Potter, you have plenty of free time to prank other students during break. It is entirely inappropriate to do so in class." McGonagall snapped.

James and Sirius exchanged looks of mock horror.

"It's not us, we swear!"

"Solemnly swear!"

"Whoever these amazing pranking geniuses are, we had nothing to do with it!"

"Amazing, incredible, clever, brilliant gen-"

"And handsome. You can't forget handsome."

"And handsome." James agreed. Then, turning back to McGonagall, said "honestly Minnie, the four of us are practically saints. How can you accuse us of something this mischievous?"

Remus snorted, but quickly turned it into a cough.

"You four are without a doubt-" but what the Marauders were exactly, they never figured out, because at that exact moment, another jack-o-lantern swooped in, and flew straight towards Professor McGonagall.

Remus thought it was impossible for the class to get more silent than they were upon seeing the jack-o-lantern enter, but they proved him wrong when the two candy corns landed on McGonagall's head. In that moment, Remus could swear that he could hear his own heartbeat and Slughorn's lecture in the Potions class six floors below them.

Slowly, filled with disbelief, Professor McGonagall summoned a mirror from Sirius's back pocket and looked at her reflection.

Gold.

Her hair was gold with bright red streaks. She had to hand it to those morons, they might be insufferable, but at least they had some pretty strong house pride.

James was the first one to break the silence. "You like it, Minnie?" He asked, his hazel eyes glinting with laughter.

McGonagall had to push her lips together tightly to stop from breaking into a smile. Secretly, she loved it, but she knew that if she let these boys get away with disrupting her class in their first year, they wouldn't let her teach in peace until the day they graduated. "Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Potter," the cheeky grin faded away from James's face. "For interrupting the lesson, twice. And I'll see you four in detention next Friday."

The Marauders groaned.

"Class dismissed. Off you go, except," she gestured to the Marauders, who shuffled sheepishly up to McGonagall's desk.

"You still can't prove it was us." Sirius protested angrily as the last student slammed the door shut behind them.

"Silence, Black." Professor McGonagall snapped. "Now I want to make myself very clear when I say that I do not tolerate disruptions in my class. Transfiguration is a complex form of magic and can easily turn dangerous if you _mess around_." She sighed, looking at Peter's blank stare, and knew that he, like the rest of the group, were listening to her, but still had no intention of behaving their age any time soon. "Your detentions will take place in my office at 7pm, next Friday."

Remus paled. Next Friday? "Um, Professor," he said in a small voice.

McGonagall glanced sharply at him, then got the hint. "Next, next Friday."

"That's too many nexts. I'm confused." Peter pointed out.

"Professor there's quidditch practice next, next Friday." James complained.

"You're not on the Quidditch team, Potter." McGonagall pointed out.

" _Yet_."

"He likes to go to the practices anyway and sit in the stands and cheer like a madman." Sirius explained, yawning hugely.

McGonagall sighed. "Fine. Next, next, next Friday-"

"I already have detention then." Sirius pointed out.

"Oh yeah, we got detention with Slughorn for blowing up Sniv- Snape's cauldron." James agreed, nodding. "He did it that late because we're supposed to wait for more horned newts."

McGonagall shook her head in resignation. "Alright, fine, consider your detention canceled." She caught sight of her reflection in Black's mirror again. That red in gold really suited her. "But as alternative punishment, I'm confiscating the mirror."

Sirius shrugged. He had loads back in the common room.

Professor McGonagall paused for a second, then asked, trying to sound as offhand as possible, "who picked out this particular color scheme?"

The other three turned to Remus, who raised both his hand and his eyebrow.

McGonagall nodded. "Take fifty points, Mr. Lupin, for- er- amazing use of the coloring charm. You are free to go."

Grinning, the Marauders walked back out of the classroom and immediately high-fived the second they were outside.

Professor McGonagall glanced at herself again in the mirror. She had to admit, she was quite a fan these new colors. She smiled to herself, silently wishing that the Marauders had thought of a spell to make the dye un-washable, so she could have an excuse to wear it at least until the next Quidditch match.

The Marauders rushed out to the greenhouse for Herbology, which they had with Hufflepuffs. Professor Sprout eyed them suspiciously as they entered the classroom (as the four of them were one of the few with un-dyed hair), but they simply grinned cheekily and waved to her.

It was the 1st years' final day to work on Puffapods, and Professor Sprout was determined for it to be a calm, relaxing one. The Marauders' Halloween Prank, however, had other ideas.

Ten minutes in, the first jack-o-lantern came in, and a Hufflepuff girl named Michelle Abbott got navy blue hair. Professor Sprout sighed and chuckled a bit as Michelle laughed and playfully tossed a handful of dirt at the Marauders; it could be worse.

Twenty minutes in, the second jack-o-lantern zoomed through the door, and Mary MacDonald's blonde pigtails became bright purple. Professor Sprout just carried on, ignoring the Marauder's giggles; it still could be worse.

Thirty minutes in, the third jack-o-lantern rushed up under Peter's legs as he carried a box of fifty-or-so Puffapods. Things seemed to move in slow motion as Peter slipped on the jack-o-lantern, lost his footing, and dropped the box of Puffapods. They fell to the ground on top of the pile of hexed candy corn the jack-o-lantern had dropped, and the result was tremendous.

The combined efforts of the Puffapods exploding into growth and the stored magical energy of the hexed candies caused the whole greenhouse to be splattered with an explosion of color.

A few seconds passed of complete, frozen silence, until Sirius finally broke it. "That. Was. _Awesome_." He breathed.

James cracked up with laughter. "Well done Peter!" He shouted, admiring his new rainbow robe and flecked-with-gold glasses.

Professor Sprout couldn't help but join in with the laughter as she repotted the Puffapods with a wave of her wand.

"Alright, let's try to not get Slughorn mad at us today." Remus said, slightly breathless with laughter as the Marauders climbed down the rickety staircase to potions after a thoroughly amusing lunch break.

"Aww, but Remy, we've already picked out a fabulous shade of orange and black polka dots for Professor Slughorn's receding hairline!" Sirius complained.

Remus shook his head, but had to admit that their plans for potions today were pretty fabulous.

They entered the classroom and sat down at their usual table, too busy trembling with excitement to even take out their collapsible cauldrons.

They weren't the only ones. The whole class was chatting amiably, eager to see what the jack-o-lanterns would bring this class. Well, everyone except Severus Snape.

Severus sat in the front of the class, next to Lily, as usual, but his shoulders were slumped and he seemed to be purposefully avoiding the Marauders' eyes, his Mexican Pink hair glittering in the dimly lit potions classroom (because the Marauders had been sure to add extra sparkles to that one). Lily had her hand on his shoulder and seemed to be comforting him about something. James's eyes narrowed and he was about to shout in protest or draw Lily's attention back to him or do something else incredibly stupid, when Professor Slughorn waddled into the room.

"Good afternoon class," he greeted, his eyes lingering a bit on Severus's pink hair and the ends of his mouth twitching. "Today we will have a special Halloween contest: cure of the boils. Whoever brews the most accurate potion first will win an invitation to my Slug Club Christmas Party in a few months. Good lu-"

Suddenly, (although no one was truly shocked by it,) a jack-o-lantern swooped in and one piece of candy corn shot out of his nose-hole. Slughorn's hair was now bright orange with black polka-dots. The class went silent (because no matter how many times you see a teacher get their hair color changed by hexed candy corn from a jack-o-lantern a day, it somehow still always has the power to shock), but when Slughorn simply laughed good-naturedly, his big stomach jiggling up and down as he did so, they continued on with their potion-brewing.

Remus looked around at his fellow Gryffindor boys and cleared his throat. "Alright, Sirius, so first we need to crush six porcupine quills with a pestle." He glanced over to the handsome, dark-haired boy. "Can I have the quills?"

Sirius held up the cauldron in which he had already been mixing the whole box of quills and a handful of frog fingers. "I think there's about twelve in here. But it's sorta hard to know for sure because, well," he gestured to the cauldron, which was now smoking.

Remus groaned.

"Just take a spoonful or something. What's the worst that can happen?" James recommended, but he wasn't even looking at his friends as he said it. Instead, his eyes were glued on Lily and Severus, who were exchanging potions notes and peering over their cauldrons excitedly. "This is ridiculous."

"Alright, well now I need the snake fangs."

"Got'cha on that one, mate." Sirius handed Remus a jar full of what looked like burnt French fries. Neon yellow burnt French fries.

"Sirius. What-" Remus started, staring at the jar in a sort of resigned disbelief.

"Oh yeah, I sorta kinda already mixed them with dittany, and banged it against the desk a few times." Sirius admitted. "But I don't think that'll matter too much right?"

Remus carefully poured the jar into their potion, which turned from an unpleasant green to a _very_ unpleasant brown, and then started crackling like popcorn in a microwave. "No, Sirius, I don't think it'll matter too much at all…" He muttered sarcastically, checking the next set of instructions in the tattered potions book.

"Now we need to let it stew for- Sirius, _NO_!" Remus shouted, smacking Sirius's hand (which had been holding a vial of cockroach intestines, alight with blue flames) away from the cauldron. "James, can you do me a favor and _restrain your best friend before he kills us all_?!"

James waved Remus off impatiently, hardly even noticing the fact that their cauldron was smoking and giving off the nauseating smell of year-old-goat-cheese. "What are they even talking about? I mean, she's already the best at potions, what does she need _him_ for? And why hasn't she switched seats with someone else yet? Don't you think it's high time Evans sat next to someone else? Like me?"

Sirius stared at James for a long time. "You have a problem, mate."

"I do not have a problem!" James retorted, offended. "I just want to know why she isn't over here right now talking to me if she has a crush on me. I mean, it's clear that she likes me. Why hasn't she just come out with it yet? If everyone else already knows how she feels about me, why's she still playing hard to-" He caught Sirius's eye and cleared his throat. "Hey, look, another jack-o-lantern!"

James wasn't expecting to be right (he had just done that as a way to change the subject and get Sirius to stop looking at him like that) but miraculously enough, he was.

Three more jack-o-lanterns came swinging in through the door: one for Avery (bright red), one for Mulciber (bright gold) and yet another one for Severus (sparkly magenta).

Now, by now, Severus had had quite enough of the Marauders. He had put up with their insanity and pranks and constant bullying for two months now, and this Halloween prank had really just been the cherry on top of a very rotten sundae. In just eight hours today, his unwashed, greasy hair had gone through 728 different shades of pink. And in that moment, with the candy corn pellet rushing towards him, the only thing on Severus's mind was pure, bitter determination not to make it to 729. He ducked and somehow managed to avoid the flying candy, which landed instead with a plop into the potion he'd been brewing.

For a second, everything seemed to be alright. Then his cauldron started shaking.

Severus exchanged one wide-eyed look with Lily before frantically trying to get the potion back under control, but it was no use. After about five seconds of sizzling and sputtering and sugar-overload, the potion exploded all over Severus and boils started popping up all over his body.

James couldn't help himself. He tried. He really did. He tried biting his lip. He tried holding his breath. He tried clutching the table so hard all ten of his knuckles cracked, but it was no use. He collapsed onto the floor, roaring with laughter.

Within seconds, Sirius was right beside him, trying to catch his breath and clutching his side, laughing uncontrollably.

Peter too started giggling excitedly, and Remus put a hand up to his mouth to conceal a smile. He didn't support James and Sirius's bullying of Snape, but he had to admit, that was pretty funny.

With the four Marauders already tearing up with laughter, it didn't take long for the rest of the Gryffindors to join in as well, soon accompanied even by several Slytherins.

"Really now! It wasn't even that funny!" Slughorn complained loudly, but the ends of his mouth were twitching again. It seemed as though the only people who weren't either laughing without restraint or restraining their laughter, were Severus and Lily.

She helped him kindly to his feet and quickly handed him a cup of some of her (almost-perfect) cure for boils potion, which seemed to help, at least on his face a bit. "It's alright, Sev. We're going to the hospital wing." She assured.

Lily looked expectantly at Professor Slughorn, who nodded for them to go ahead, his several chins starting to tremble with the tension of trying not to laugh.

Once Lily and Severus were safely out of the potions classroom and out of earshot, Slughorn too exploded with laughter. "I… know… I… shouldn't… laugh…" he gasped between chuckles. "Such… a… good… student…" He paused for a minute, struggling (quite unsuccessfully) to catch his breath. "But did you see his- his face?!" The class roared with laughter once more, and Slughorn had to cling to his desk for support as he wiped a tear from his eye. "Twenty points to whoever did that! Class dismissed!" He exclaimed. "Oh, and Potter, would you do me a favor and inform Miss Evans that she is invited to the Slug Club Christmas Party? Excellent cure for the boils potion! Excellent! Ten points to Gryffindor!"

James grinned, something that was starting to become such a regular habit today that his cheekbones were starting to hurt.

The Marauders' next class was History of Magic, but James, being a man of his word, decided to skip it and go find Lily to tell her what Slughorn told him instead. Sirius and Peter tried every tactic they could to persuade Remus to let them all go with James, but in the end, when Remus told Sirius he was seconds away from lighting his hair products on fire, Sirius and Peter agreed to back down and go to class. ("Just this once though…")

And so it was that James Potter went skipping down the stairs towards the hospital wing, with daydreams of Lily Evans swimming through his mind.

It just so happened however that James didn't even have to go down to the hospital wing to see Lily (and Severus), as he nearly ran her over down the next corridor.

"Potter?! What are you-?!"

"Evans! Brilliant! Listen, I want your honest opinion: how's the prank going thus far?" He asked excitedly.

"You mean _you're_ the one behind all this?" Lily demanded, outraged.

James winked. "But of course."

"Potter, I swear, you are without a doubt the most intolerable boy I've ever met."

James rolled his eyes. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do."

"No you don't."

" _Yes_ , Potter, I _do_."

"Aw c'mon Evans. Are you mad because it hurt?"

Lily stared at James for several seconds. "Because _what_ hurt exactly?"

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

"No, but did it hurt when you came crawling up from hell?"

James laughed. "Good one." Then, his eyes fell on to the person standing beside Lily. "Snivellus stop being so rude. Can't you tell Evans and I are trying to have an intelligent conversation here? Your greasiness is not assisting my smoothness, so I think you'd better get lost."

Severus's eyes narrowed. His boils were gone now, Madam Pomfrey had healed them almost instantly, but he still looked positively murderous. "No. As a matter of fact, Potter, _I_ was talking to Lily first."

James gave Severus the stink eye, looking absolutely affronted. "I'm James Potter." He said simply, like those three words were the response, comeback, and answer to everything.

"And?" Severus said after a while.

"And I'm twenty times better than you, so I think I automatically win this, thank-you-very-much."

The two boys glared at each other for a few minutes, before James, who had quite frankly had enough of this guy for one day, pushed him back a little and said "shoo."

"Do you honestly think I'm just going to leave?"

"Are you implying that you're not?"

Severus's hand tightened around his wand. "Do you think I'm a coward?"

"I think you're a Slytherin." James said, his hand reaching into his robes. "Same thing basically."

"Potter I swear if you say one more word to me-"

"I'm not trying to talk to you! I'm trying to talk to Evans! It's not my fault you're getting in my way. Talk to you of my own free will, yeah right."

"I'm getting in _your_ way?!" Severus snarled. His hand tightened around his wand. He was ready to duel, he was ready to duel, he was _so_ ready to duel and get back at James Potter. "You're always the one trying to make a fool of me! Why don't you just leave Lily and I alone?!"

"Why don't _you_ just stay away from Evans?" James shot back, seething with rage. He disliked this 'Snivellus' guy from day one, and every day since that dislike had only gone stronger and stronger. "Stop pretending like you have a chance with her and back down before you-"

"You can take that 'chance' of yours and shove it up your-"

Where exactly James could shove his chance however, he never found out, because at that moment, Peeves swooped in from seven flights up and started chucking spitballs at the two of them. "Students missing class!" He yelled. "Students missing class and fighting in the corridors!"

James and Severus swore loudly and dived in opposite directions to avoid the next thing Peeves decided to throw at them: a whole blackboard from one of the teacher's walls, when James caught sight of who tipped Peeves off that they were there.

Lily Evans stood at the foot of the stairs, her arms crossed, her hair flaming, and her eyes ablaze with fury at the two of them, but mostly (James noticed with a jolt of confusion) at him.

"Come on Sev, let's just get out of here and get to class."

Severus crawled up and went to follow Lily, sending James one final angry glare before disappearing down another staircase.

It took a few seconds for James to acknowledge what had just happened. He had just gone over to Lily Evans, had a conversation with her, started fighting with Severus (at some point during which, Lily must've gotten fed up with their argument and went to get Peeves), and was on the verge of winning when Peeves interrupted and now, somehow, Severus was back with Lily like he hadn't interrupted at all.

James shook it off and sprinted down the stairs after them.

"You're going to class?" He asked, with a raised eyebrow and a grin. "Gryffindors are in History of Magic." He looked at Lily expectantly. After staring at James for a full second, Lily realized what he was talking about. She was going the wrong way.

"See you after dinner, Sev." Lily said, with a sad smile on her face, and went up the stairs, punching James in the gut as she passed him. "Get back to class and leave him alone." She muttered through clenched teeth.

"Will do." Said James cheerfully, but once Lily's back was turned, he mouthed "HA!" to Severus and dodged the bat-bogey hex sent straight to his face. "Evans, wait up!" He shouted, crashing up the stairs behind her.

"Get lost Potter." Lily groaned.

"But I need _help._ " James whined.

Lily sighed and turned to face him. " _Yes_ , Potter?" She asked, clearly wishing more than anything for him to just leave them alone and get back to class.

James took off his glasses and examined them skeptically. "I think there's something wrong with my eyes." He explained. "I can't take them off of you!"

"I'm having a problem with mine too." Lily said. James wasn't sure whether to be excited or worried by this comment. "Because I just can't see you getting anywhere with me."

James blinked. "Dang. Good one." He admitted. "Although I gotta say, you look familiar." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, you really look like my next girlfriend."

Lily snorted. "Really? I think I recognize you from somewhere too. Aren't you that prat that I'm about to turn down for the fifth time today?"

"Yeah, well-" Before James could think of yet another corny pick-up line, the staircase they stood on began to move.

Lily and James grasped the railings desperately as the staircase swooped around to face the other corridor. They clambered off, bewildered, and entirely lost.

"You know, it's kinda ridiculous that we're expected to get to class on time when the staircases deliberately make everyone late."

"Completely ludicrous." Lily agreed halfheartedly, her eyes scanning the floors above them, trying to figure out where they were and how they were to get back to History of Magic.

"I think we should just skip."

"I think you should skip too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Skip yourself right up to the Astronomy tower and pitch yourself off." Lily sniffed. "I on the other hand and going back to class."

Flying lessons were certainly interesting that day. Remus and Sirius had charmed the pumpkins to fly around the pitch like Bludgers, and James successfully dodged each and every one of them, earning a cheer from the rest of the Gryffindors each time he had a particularly close swerve and doubling Snape's bad mood.

At the end of the lesson, James dived down and (avoiding another pumpkin-bludger) landed right beside Madam Hooch. "Are you _sure_ I can't join the Quidditch team?" He pleaded.

" _YES_ , Mr. Potter, I am sure." She shook her head, but James could see she was smiling. James ducked to allow a jack-o-lantern to shoot a candy corn at Madam Hooch, turning her hair bright purple. "And this," she gestured to her grape-colored head. "Is not helping your case."

The Marauders were positively shaking with excitement as they sat down for the Halloween Feast in the Great Hall. They had prepared a spectacular spectacle for the final few hours of Hallows Eve. "You guys ready for this?" James's face was alight with excitement.

"But of course." Sirius smirked.

"Ready-jelly," Peter agreed, as he poured gravy on his turkey.

Remus grinned and glanced around the Great Hall. More than half of the people had bright, colorful, Halloween-ed hair. Professor Leam of the Defense Against the Dark Arts department, an old, wrinkled man who looked as though he had recently been pickled, had a black and red Mohawk. Madam Pince's hair had turned pastel periwinkle, and she did not look too happy about it. Lily Evans was one of the few who had been seemingly untouched. Sitting next to maroon-haired Marlene McKinnon and purple-pigtailed Mary MacDonald, Lily looked quite frustrated with the Gryffindor boys, but her hair remained its deep, dark red. Severus Snape on the other hand, had suffered fifteen more attacks since his staircase fight with James, and was now sitting anxiously on the edge of his seat, as though steeling himself for the next shower of pink that was sure to come.

" _That arrogant git Potter won't let anyone get off this easily…"_ He thought to himself bitterly, gazing up at the ceiling suspiciously. _"There's bound to be some grand finale."_

He was right.

All at once, the 300 jack-o-lanterns zoomed in. They pelted people left and right with candy corn color-bombs. Some students screamed and tried to duck for cover under the long tables. Others laughed as their hair was splashed with crazy reds and golds, oranges and blacks, pinks and purples, and every color in between (except green and silver, of course).

Peter, caught up in the excitement, opened his mouth wide to try and catch one and ended up burping a huge cloud of color. Sirius and James roared with laughter as Peter grinned apologetically and Remus waved the smelly and rainbow fog away, smiling.

Lucius swatted angrily at a candy corn headed in his direction, and, seconds later, gasped in horror as it hit his girlfriend, Narcissa's face instead, making it bright strawberry red. James snorted with laughter back at the Gryffindor table and Sirius shot his future cousin-in-law a devilish grin. Bellatrix, whose hair was a tangled mess of Sirius-formulated, colorful revenge, stood up on the table and threw a whole bowl of mashed potatoes into Sirius's face. "You blood-traitor bastard!" She screamed.

James saw the look of shock and hurt in his best mate's eyes, even before the plate reached him, and decided right then and there, that this girl, who thought she could get away with hurting his best friend, was going down.

"FOOD FIGHT!" James yelled.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Food flew through the air alongside the candy and jack-o-lanterns. Students chucked turkey legs, mince pies, and peppermint humbugs at each other. Handfuls of pudding and entire sweet potatoes soared across tables. James wasted no time in scooping up some whipped cream and slamming it into Sirius's face, and Sirius wasted no time after that in pouring an entire bottle of butterbeer onto James's head. Peter enjoyed himself quite a bit by trying to catch any food that was thrown at him with his mouth, and Remus surprisingly got off easy, or so he thought, before Sirius hit him in the face with a stalk of cauliflower. Everyone was so overwhelmed by the hilarity and chaos of the moment that noone noticed a small jack-o-lantern the size of a lime flutter through with one final piece of hexed candy corn.

Before James even knew what was happening, he felt something wet and sticky wash over his head. Sirius laughed devilishly as a shocked James wrenched a mirror out of his hand. His hair was now the most insane multicolored mess he had ever seen in his life.

"I look like a rainbow's barf bag!" James shouted, causing his friends to laugh even louder. He shrugged, playfully splattering them with blueberries.

"Now the color fits the style though mate." Sirius grinned, his eyes glinting with laughter.

James roared with laughter as he shoved a piece of cake into his friend's face.

Remus glanced up at Dumbledore nervously, but his brilliant blue eyes only twinkled with laughter behind his spectacles. After a few minutes of fantastic, food-throwing fun however, the headmaster (prodded quite a bit by McGonagall beforehand) stood up.

"Alright." He addressed the great hall in a very amused voice. "It has been a very eventful Halloween. I think we are all aware that there are some new pranksters our school has received this year." His eyes twinkled over at the Marauders, who pretended not to know what on earth their headmaster was talking about. "However, as fun as this day has been, it is now time for bed, I think you will all join me in wishing whoever brought this magic of laughter upon us, H-"

Before Dumbledore could finish however, one final jack-o-lantern swooped in. Every Hogwarts student watched in awe as it soared between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables straight to the big table where the staff sat. Releasing the final candy corn of the night, the Marauders had certainly saved the best for last.

In less than a heartbeat, Dumbledore's long silvery hair and beard had turned a bright, neon blue with gold stars.

A few seconds of silence suffocated the Great Hall, before Dumbledore laughed in delight and called out "Happy Halloween!" As the students filed out, he examined his new bright beard, grinning. "Look at how the stars glimmer when I move my head like this, Minerva." He pointed out, laughing, his blue eyes twinkling as his gaze followed the Marauders out of the Hall.

"That. Was. Awesome!" Sirius yelled the second the door to the Marauders' dormitory closed. "I mean did you see that?! Dumbledore totally loved his beard!"

"Severus's 750 shades of pink though…" James snorted, pulling on his pajamas.

"And the best of all," Remus added, grinning. "Is that the paint won't wash out even with magic for another two weeks."

Chatting excitedly, the Marauders pulled themselves into bed and within five minutes, all of them had fallen into a deep sleep. Well, all of them, except James.

James had brushed off the whole 'rainbow barf bag' candy-corn prank Sirius had pulled on him as irrelevant and something easily forgotten, but after the sounds of everyone's snores filled the dormitory, he began a very hairy prank of his own.

Chuckling silently to himself, James made his way through the maze of clothes and candy wrappers and discarded joke shop items to Sirius's bed. He pulled out his wand, and, remembering the hexes they had used on the candy corn earlier, tapped Sirius's hair, before crawling back to his own bed, and falling asleep.

The Marauders were awoken at 5am the next morning by a very loud and incessant shrieking. Remus fumbled over his blankets in a desperate attempt to get up, fearing the worst. Peter tripped over his sheets and landed on his face, crawling to Sirius with terror written all over his face. James, knowing what his best friend was screaming about this time, lounged on his bed and looked around, pretending to look mildly confused.

"MY HAIR IS ORANGE!" Sirius shrieked, throwing another one of his handheld mirrors across the room so that it shattered. "IT'S ORANGE!"

Remus felt his jaw drop in disbelief. Sirius's hair was orange. Very orange. Very bright blinding neon orange. It didn't look remotely flattering. He put his head in his hand and shook it back and forth very slowly, knowing what was coming before it came. Sirius Orion Black was the biggest drama queen Hogwarts had ever seen, and hair was without a doubt the thing Sirius could get most dramatic about.

"MY BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, POSITIVELY GORGEOUS HAIR HAS BEEN TAINTED BY AN ORANGE DEMON!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. "I CANNOT POSSIBLY HOPE TO GO ON!" Sirius rolled off his bed and collapsed onto the floor. "THIS IS THE END OF ME, DEAR FRIENDS, THE END. I WILL NOT LIVE WITH THIS AWFUL OF HAIR, IT IS TOO HUMILIATING. IT GOES AGAINST EVERYTHING I STAND FOR! IT IS NOT GORGEOUS, LIKE ME! MY HAIR IS NO LONGER A PART OF ME. I CANNOT HOPE TO CARRY ON." He sobbed. "BURY ME HERE. I WANT MY GHOST TO FOREVER HAUNT THESE HALLS AND SING MY SAD SONG OF TACKY, LUDICROUSLY TACKY ORANGE HAIR!"

Now, James was finding all this to be very amusing, and wouldn't've minded if it had continued for quite a while longer, but unfortunately he felt his mouth opening before he could close it. "Hey, look at the bright side, at least now the color matches the style."

Sirius flipped out, leaped onto James's bed and whipped out his wand. "James Charlus Potter" he said through gritted teeth. "Thou hath insulted my pride. Thou hath insulted my honor. Thou hath insulted _my hair_. Therefore I hereby challenge thou to a prank war of epic proportions."

James grinned, a gesture that was immediately returned by Sirius.

"You're on."


End file.
